


dangerous magics

by SashaSea (SHCombatalade)



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Fae, Alternate Universe - Magic, Alternate Universe - Urban Fantasy, F/M, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-07
Updated: 2019-01-07
Packaged: 2019-10-06 10:15:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 52,841
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17343455
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SHCombatalade/pseuds/SashaSea
Summary: For centuries, there was a war.Then there were the Bindings.(Reposted and restricted to registered AO3 users only)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> After nearly a year of deliberation, I have made the decision to post this fic back online... the original reasons for its deletion (plagarism, fandom discourse, etc) are still an issue, so I have made it locked to registered users only, but overall there's been enough love and support that I've decided it deserves a second chance.
> 
> Thanks to everyone who has reached out since the original publication, and to everyone who messaged me privately asking for the pdf. You all are too kind to me, and I actually get really teary thinking about you SO I'M MOVING ON
> 
> It's back. Hopefully forever, at least for now. I love you all.

_What if evil doesn’t really exist? What if evil is something dreamed up by man, and there is nothing to struggle against except out own limitations?  
_ _The constant battle between our will, our desires, and our choices? – Libba Bray, Rebel Angels_

 

 

 

 

For centuries, there was a war.

Then there were the Bindings.

* * *

It is the inherent black and white of magic that causes the divide: dark and light. Night and day. One cannot exist without the comparative presence of the other, yet neither can exist in harmony. They find their solution in the Bindings. The Summer Kingdom, united under the High Council, places the wards. The kingdom of man, their witches finding guidance under tutelage of the Fae, forge the iron. The opposition is locked away, and the world finds a semblance of peace.

The wheel turns. The centuries pass. The Bindings hold.

Civilization rises from these constants.

Outside the Bindings, the Summer Kingdom flourishes – republics rise and fall as ages pass, and skyscrapers of human innovation climb steadily higher. The blending of magic and machine puts footsteps on the moon.

Behind the Bindings, the Winter Kingdom lunges at the bars of its cage with snarling, snapping teeth and the icy determination of the oppressed, desperate to find a weakness that could lead to a way out.

The wheel turns. The bindings hold.

In a luxury apartment in the heart of the city, an old man releases his last breath. 

* * *

I.

* * *

 Neil wakes up to knocking on his door; it echoes down the staircase from the main level of the house until it fills his tiny basement room with the sound of thunder. “Mmmup,” he tells his pillow. There’s a moment of respite where he thinks he might actually be able to fall back to sleep, but then the pounding continues with greater urgency.

“I’m going to work!” he hears his mother call. The following silence is awkward, uncomfortable, like his mother has more to say but doesn’t know how or like his mother is waiting for him to respond but doesn’t know what. It’s a common silence in their household. In the three years since his sixteenth birthday (rather, since the day he’d gone to pick up his license and the registrar had apologized for the paper-and-laminate copy. “We don’t get much call to use our Human stamp,” they’d said without making eye contact. “We’ll mail your license as soon as we find it.”) Neil thinks they’ve had more conversations of those uncomfortable silences than they have with actual words.

He takes pity on his mom; they used to be so close. “I’ll be here!” he calls back up, voice sharp.

Of course.

Where else would he be?

The silence stretches, almost a physical presence, and Neil doesn’t actually know if there are wards at the door or not but he imagines there must be – sound ebbs further and further like it’s being sucked under the crack into the kitchen, leaving him in a void. His mother doesn’t respond. He waits until he hears the footsteps echo across the front hall and the door slam before he lets himself burrow back under the blankets; he may as well go back to sleep.

It’s not as though he has anywhere to be.

* * *

Neil wakes up a second time to his phone ringing; it’s an annoying, tinny chord of beeps that comes standard for all the older models, but it’s not like he would be able to work anything beyond the twelve-years out-of-date contraption anyway. He fumbles, trying to squint against a too-tiny screen and too-large buttons to see who’s calling, but instead he manages to thumb the connect button. “‘lo?”

“Neil!” It’s Matt. Of course it’s him – only four people have Neil’s number, and three of them wouldn’t bother calling unless it was literally the end of the world (his mom would just knock and linger and wish she had more to say to her only son. Dara would let himself in and throw himself onto the foot of the bed until Neil got up and showered. And Mari... he actually doesn’t think Mari would bother to contact him even if the world were literally ending. It doesn’t hurt, but it probably should).

He checks the clock beside the bed; it’s nine in the morning. “Matt, bro, you know I love you,” and the phone jolts his hand with a small electric shock that years of experience have taught him to mean the sylph has forgotten not to send a small, pleased spark of magic through the line to him. Matt hasn’t gotten used to Human customs, even after all these years of friendship. “But it’s Monday morning. I was going to sleep in.”

Matt snorts. “It’s Thursday.”

He doesn’t actually know what day of the week it is, or what month; Neil doesn’t have much to do in the way of anything, like ever, and it’s been four years of the time bleeding together into one long stretch of asleep and awake and sometimes leaving the basement. “Is it really?”

“Thursday,” Matt repeats, but fondly. “It’s April 21st.”

Oh, Neil thinks. _Oh_. “You need gift advice?” Dan’s birthday is in a few days, and – well, it’s obvious to anyone with eyes that Matt loves her, but there’s a huge difference between the romantic gift giving traditions of people than there are of sylphs. Last Christmas he’d given her wind. Literally. Wind. Neil still doesn’t know how he’d managed to gift wrap it so beautifully.

He hears paper shuffling in the background, which either means Matt is currently hard at work or that he’s flustered enough to be blowing them around his office. “Rings,” he says finally, and that answers Neil’s unspoken question.

“Really?” Neil had dropped hints three years ago that it was probably time for the fae to pop the question; it wasn’t a matter of necessity, really, because every interaction between the two screamed ‘long haul.’ It was just that, well, with Dan’s family being who they were, a wedding could do a lot to smooth her place in society over. He wishes the same could be said for his place – or lack thereof. Unfortunately there wasn’t a creature important enough whose marriage could somehow rework the entire history of the world to allow Neil just one day of normalcy. He’s not bitter. He was, once, and was for a very long time. It’s just that he’s only nineteen and his figures he’s got a long life ahead of him... he can’t spend it being angry. He probably should, though. It would give him something to do.

“Really.” He can all but hear the smile in the sylph’s voice. “Are you free tomorrow?”

Neil almost falls over himself trying to climb out of bed and into a pair of pants; he’s been waiting for this phone call for a little over three years now, but years have not dulled the adrenaline or excitement of it. “ _Bro_ ,” and he puts a little bit of the growl directed at the shirt he’s just sniffed – definitely not clean then – into his reply to Matt. “You know I am.”

Much as he can all but hear the smile, he can all but hear it falling. “Sorry Neil,” Matt whispers, voice gone quiet and murmury like it does during his spells; apologies _mean something_ to Fae. So do thanks, and Names (capitol letter distinction absolutely required. From what he can understand of it, which is, admittedly, not much, Names themselves are the most basic of spells. Names can be used to bind a creature to another’s will. It’s why, despite almost a decade of close friendship, Neil has no idea what Matt is called beyond, well Matt. Bro, informally). “I forgot.”

“Not your fault, Matt.” It really isn’t. Neil is a pariah despite the sylph’s best efforts to include him. The summer before Neil’s thirteenth birthday, Matt had sponsored him for an internship at the Containment Division... it had lasted all of a day before he’d been banned from the building, and at least three witches had spit insults after him for breaking the wards. His mother had heard about the incident before Neil had even made it home, through the unfailing grapevine of the Seelie Guard. The silences had started around then.

 _Sweetie’s_ , scrawls elegant crimson script across his bedroom wall. It burns into the plaster like a brand, flashing a neon red beacon before slowly fading as if it had never been. _Twenty minutes_. _Come alone._

He can feel the clench of panic at the back of his throat. He hadn’t realized it was that time again. “Matt, buddy, I gotta go.” Neil is already jamming his feet into the nearest available shoes; this time of day, it’s fifteen minutes to Sweetie’s under the best circumstances. He still needs to get dressed, brush his teeth, and it’s not the sort of meeting he can be late to. It sounds overdramatic of him to say that they would kill him, but there’s a distinct possibility of it being true – theirs is hardly a safe world even for those who can defend themselves. “Call me tomorrow, we’ll go ring shopping.” He curses the way his voice has gone squeaky with urgency.

Matt is blissfully oblivious. The office sounds have picked up, and with it being as close to Beltane as it is the Bindings are due for reinspection; Neil is surprised Matt could find even the few minutes of free time he did to call. The Containment Division is busiest at the eight points of the year where the wheel turns. “Alright, Neil,” and the smile is back. “Tomorrow then.”

The call ends, and Neil thinks he might have just enough time to make it across town before he’s due before the firing squad.

* * *

The firing squad is a witch named Kevin – Dara, because there’s power in Names and his holds some of the greatest power on earth. He’s one of only twelve Class Five magic users in the past five generations, and the only Class Five to ever be born a human being. Abilities aside, he’s also entirely ruthless, and would probably be lethal even without the unimaginable depths of magical energy. He is also, and has been for going on ten of Neil’s going on nineteen years, Neil’s best friend. “Could you have been any creepier?” Neil says instead of saying hello, and slides into the booth across from him; he’s already ordered for the both of them, because they know each other well enough to get away with that.

Kevin rolls his eyes around a sip of iced tea, dark brows set over dark eyes and shrouding a dark expression – Ciarrìgh, the world calls him. Dara. The Second. Outside of the parents who named him, only two people know him as Kevin. One of them is Neil. “You never check your texts.”

He never checks them because no one ever sends any, not since the latest iPhone had released with a built in scrying mirror. “Blood red letters on my bedroom wall?” He shrugs. “‘Twenty minutes?’ ‘Come alone??’”

Kevin taps an impatient count against the chipping tabletop. “I didn’t want you to bring your girlfriend.”

Mari is not – “She’s not-” she sort of is, but only in the most general of sense – “my girlfriend.” Neil viciously stuffs a few grapes (dark) into his mouth, because the alternative is actually talking about his feelings – or lack thereof – for his sort of, kind of girlfriend. It’s a futile endeavor, he knows that Kevin will ask and he will answer, but he figures that if the painful discussion _is_ going to happen he should at least fuel up beforehand. “Seriously, you made it seem like I was meeting some Unsee Mob Boss or something. Next time just say-”

“You get pissy when I call it a lunch date.” Kevin finishes his sentence like he’s reading Neil’s mind. He might actually be able to read minds, Neil doesn’t know, but he can’t read his – it’s more that Kevin knows him better than anyone does, even his own mother, and in his words Neil’s tragically predictable.

Neil doesn’t hesitate before reaching over to help himself to one of the pieces of chicken out of his pasta; Kevin’s already done the same to at least half of Neil’s sandwich. “You’re lucky I was alone. There’s no way I could explain to someone that the nefarious blood writing is actually just my best friend inviting me to lunch.”

Kevin swats his hand away from a second piece of chicken. “Sounds like _you’re_ lucky you were alone.” They don’t say anything else for a while because they’re both pretending not to know that the words hurt a little; Neil is frequently alone. He spends his days alone, and aside from lunches like these or the few times a week phone calls from Matt, he’ll likely spend his life alone. There’s not much going for people like him.

Kevin apologizes by giving him only the mildest of glares when Neil steals the second half of his milkshake, and he tells Neil about the quarterly reinspections of the Bindings. Neil doesn’t understand a word of it, and half of the words don’t even sound like anything, like his brain can’t even process them as language because they’re so far above his level of comprehension – he doesn’t mind. The fact that he’s telling Neil, even knowing it means nothing to him, means a lot.

Kevin had tested at a Class Three level at his first examination; only three years old and already wielding magic at a level greater than most adults could ever reach. At his second examination, they’d had to call in a second Proctor because the first (one of the High Fae. Neil couldn’t stand the High Fae, not back then and especially not now) refused to believe the results. He’d been taken to the capitol after that, and returned only six months later with the licensing that the rest of the population received almost a decade older. He’d gone to Neil’s house first to show him the gilded number five in the corner of the card, told him what it meant and what he’d learned. The youngest Class Five, the only one of their species, and he never once considered Neil to be an inferior. It’s the same now, the way Kevin speaks to him as an equal even though his brain physically cannot fathom things on a magical plane, because Kevin has never bought into the school of thinking that Humans are stupid.

“So...” and he latches on to the thirty percent of the conversation he could understand, key phrases that can be linked together into a succinct, if simple, picture. “It’s going well then?”

Kevin beams at him. “Do you know why we’re friends?” The question comes right on the heels of one of his particularly pensive looks, and the hairs at the back of Neil’s neck stand up in warning; he doesn’t have the precognition that others can have, doesn’t have the warding jewelry that warns of danger, but he has this – this simple, basic, _Human_ thing – and it’s never lead him astray.

“Because when we were two years old my father sold me to your family and you’re too secretly sentimental to get rid of me?”

His sudden laugh is like music; once upon a time, in another lifetime, he might have been drawn to it like a dying man to warmth. Neil thinks he was in love with Kevin before he even had a word for the emotion, recognition only coming with the time and experience of age. And, once upon a time, in another lifetime, there was the potential for Kevin to be in love with him too – he knew the other man as Kevin, after all, and Kevin knew him as both his full given name in all its atrocity and the affectionate diminutive (Neil) his mother had called him. A bond like that, well it meant something in their world.

But the fact of the matter was that Kevin was arguably the most magical being on the planet, and Neil was –

Well, Neil was Human.

He laughs and it’s like looking into the life that could have been, if Neil had not been born defective. “I meant do you know why we’re _still_ friends?”

Neil knows that he has been out of love with Kevin for just about as long as he’s been out of the ebb and flow of society – both four years, and a lifetime. “Because I’m literally the only creature in the world you can’t kill with your mind?”

“Please Neil,” but there’s another laugh hiding beneath the words, something warmer and fonder; it’s hard for him to regret a world wherein they are more than friends when their friendship is so important – perhaps the most important thing he will ever do with his life. “I wouldn’t need magic to kill you with my mind.” The endearment harkens back to the blood red writing on his wall, and he thinks Kevin might be right. “It’s because you’re...” In two seconds of hesitation he’s listed forty-seven adjectives that he might expect to be used, and one noun. _A Human_ , and Kevin won’t mean it like an insult but he’ll say it like one, intention turning the word over like a weapon to test the sharpest edge. “ _You_ ,” he finishes, and Neil blinks.

“I’m nothing,” Neil reminds him. “I’m useless.” It’s not self-deprecation – Neil is literally useless. In a society that has been rooted in magic for untold millennia, there is hardly a use to be found for the single surviving human being who is completely and utterly deaf to magic. It’s not even that he can’t feel it – he should be able to feel it. It’s in the air, they tell him, all around. It touches his skin every moment of his life, can’t he _feel it_? – no. It’s much worse. “I’m a mistake.”

He can’t feel the magic in the air but he can see the way that, as one, all of the lights in the diner explode – no one so much as flinches. Kevin is a relatively famous person, it’s likely they all recognized his face when he came in and they know better to question his actions; Neil blinks. “You’re brilliant,” Kevin hisses at him, vehement like an insult. “You don’t know a thing about magic but you always seem to know exactly what I’m talking about. There’s not a spell we’ve found yet that can affect you, but you make do in the world. You are absolutely _brilliant_.”

There’s a suspicious prick at the corner of his eyes. “Thanks, Kev,” he whispers, voice pitched especially low – Neil is not magical, but there’s a magic in Names and thanks and he gives up both.

“Believe in yourself,” Kevin orders, ignoring the embarrassing mistiness of his eyes. “Like I believe in you.”

Neil has tried – and failed – for years. “It’s hard... I don’t have a lot going for me.” Due to his incompatibility with magic, Neil hadn’t been able to attend school after his thirteenth birthday; what he knows, he knows from his own efforts to learn and whatever Kevin could explain to him. Aside from his single, disastrous day with the Containment Division, he hadn’t been able to take a job even the basic barista positions required at least and Class One grasp of spell work. Neil is, quite simply, a non-event. He is an aberrance.

Kevin glances at him with the same calculating glance he gives any of his projects, thin lips twisted into a smile; _danger_ , the hairs at the back of Neil’s neck prickle. _Danger_. “Well, let’s change that,” he says like it’s easy – for someone like him, it really is.

“Dara-”

The glare that is aimed his way could cut glass. “Dump Mari. She’s not worth your time.” She’s not, Neil knows that, and he doesn’t even like the undine all that much – when she actually bothers to return Neil’s calls, she’s a litany of complaints. She hates the basement. She hates Neil’s friends. She hates that Neil doesn’t (can’t) own a car or that they never (can’t) go to the movies. She hates that Neil is as much effort as he is for very little reward. – despite technically dating for almost a year. He thinks that he’s heard maybe one kind thing from the undine’s mouth in their entire nine month relationship.

He nods, agreeing. “So stop initiating contact basically.” The last of the milkshake tastes bitter in his mouth.

“Get out of the basement.” It feels as though the entire lunch – the food, the back and forth, the compliments – has been leading up to this bombshell; Neil doesn’t live in the basement by choice. Neil lives there because he is simply unable to live anywhere else; the few apartments that have electricity often don’t have other necessities for the magic deaf (like floors), and he doesn’t exactly have the means to afford his own place.

He really does hate the basement, though. He hates the way the floor is always cold, even in the summer, and the way that his mom’s silences creak against the steps. He hates the way he shares his space with the few boxes of his father’s things that she couldn’t bear to part with, that haunt the corner of his bedroom like his spirit might, if he could see spirits. “How?”

Kevin has clearly spent some time thinking this through – today is only the sales pitch. “Wymack’s building has a vacancy. It’s been empty for three months now, something about people not wanting to live in an ‘older space,’ and when I called the realtor she told me all about how quaint it was. It’s wired for electricity and it has pipes for water. The old man who lived there was apparently quite eccentric.” Kevin waves the waitress over and passes her a few bills, settling their tab and then some, before turning a sharp-eyed glare on Neil. “We have an appointment for a showing at the end of the month.”

Wymack’s building. it’s the unrecognized arrogance of Kevin’s position, his prestige, that has his casual reference to the Foxhole Court as something _casual_. “I can’t move into the Court!” The rise in his voice is half scandalized, half scared. The Court is where the Seelie government houses their most valuable assets – the majority of the witches and the Fae of the Containment Division live there. _Kevin_ lives there. “I’m-”

“I need you there.” It’s a low blow, tiptoeing the line of the parts of their past that they’ve sworn must remain buried there, but it works. Neil will never be able to deny his friend this.

“Dara,” he tries again, weakly. He already knows that he’ll go along with anything Kevin says, because he’s been doing it for the better part of a decade.

Kevin softens his face in the way that he knows makes him look younger, smaller; the way Neil remembers him from _before_. “Please,” and his voice is a low whisper, face open – this is the rare reminder that there is a man beneath the power, beneath the fame. A man that Neil has been standing back to back against the world with for the majority of his life. “You’re the only friend I’ve got, and I can’t-” His injured hand spasms against Neil’s forearm, gripping tightly. “I can’t stay there alone anymore.”

It’s not as if he could say no after that, even if he wanted to. He’s too tired to fight – Neil has been tired since he turned sixteen. Maybe before that, maybe since the day he realized that the world didn’t react to him the way it was supposed to: his coffee was always too hot or too cold. He could never find jeans that fit. It wasn’t that he was unlucky because luck didn’t exist like that, not anymore, it was more that the magic that fixed it wouldn’t work for him. Neil knows he’s not normal because he _is_ tired, always, even though he sleeps with a pillow that promises perfect rest and a mattress that has comfort and relaxation stitched into the lining. “End of the month?”

Kevin beams at him again, and the hair at the back of his neck urges him to run. “I’ll text you the address.” Nobody sends texts anymore – it’s his equivalent of a grand gesture. Neil knows then that he’ll be going to the apartment showing, even if every instinct he has (he has two sets: the ones that are honed to keeping him alive, the prickles of recognition that there is danger to be found, and he can’t feel magic but he can feel the lack of it in the way his skin finally feels like it fits. The second set are dulled from his years in the basement, his years out of school – these are the instincts that tell him in a voice that sounds too much like Mari and his mother, that maybe nothing about his existence is worth the effort) tells him it’s a mistake. Kevin touches his arm. “I know it’s a lot of change. And I know that change can be-”

“It doesn’t matter.” He shrugs. “It’s not like my life could get any worse.” Kevin doesn’t admonish him for tempting the universe (there’s power in words, especially in the cities where the air is thick with magic like this. It’s everything he’s learned since the time he was small, to guard his words and guard himself against the words of others), even as Neil watches the tiniest muscles around his eyes go tight.

Maybe he knows it’s the truth.


	2. Chapter 2

* * *

II.

* * *

 On the last Wednesday of the month, Neil finds himself outside of the sort of building he wouldn’t normally approach; it’s not that he’s nervous, not really (he is. The sun is high and the sky is bright and he doesn’t like the way that air feels up here, out of the too-damp basement where the prick of warning doesn’t jolt his flesh), it’s just that there’s quite clearly a Sort of being who belongs here, and he is not it. The building shimmers in the strange, syrupy way that means it’s coated in more layers of glamors than paint, and the undine doorman blinks both sets of eyelids in agitation at his approach. Apparently the classic jeans (that never quite fit right) and t-shirt combination isn’t so classic here. “This is private property.” His voice sounds vaguely muffled, as though underwater.

“I have an appointment,” Neil aims for – and misses, if the suddenly sour expression is anything to go by – a smile. It would probably lend a bit more credibility to his presence if his voice didn’t tilt upward into a question; there is an appointment. Neil is aware of it. The appointment, however, might not be aware of him.

The undine remains unmoved; he blocks the door with crossed arms and a cross expression. The one two blink of his bulging, fish-like eyes (he thinks, of everything, the worst of his life is that he sees through glamors. Sometimes there are things that were never meant to be seen) returns at the quiet beeping from his phone; phones don’t ring anymore, not usually. Neil excuses himself to the other side of the street to answer, but the undine keeps him in sight, still suspicious.

“Neil,” Kevin sounds winded, like he’s been running – he’s running late. Neil would be concerned if it wasn’t still so close to Beltane; if Kevin’s slept at all in the past week, it would come as a surprise. “The appointment-”

He’s more than used to a Kevin that’s strung-out on stress and sleeplessness. “Calm down,” he orders first. It’s rare that Kevin listens to him when the only authority he can muster is a stern voice, but there’s a higher likelihood when he’s distracted like this. “It’s okay.” The words are familiar – most of his life has been these whispered platitudes, the anchors to Kevin’s humanity that first the Ravens and now the Seelie government have tried to sever. Kevin’s entire life has been an encouragement to give himself entirely to magic; Neil’s has been the reminder to save something for himself. There’s a long shuddering breath through the phone. “I think I can manage to look at a building without you hovering.”

The next huff of air from the speaker is Kevin’s quiet disagreement. “You get nervous leaving the basement when I’m not hovering.”

“And you still sleep with a nightlight,” it’s entirely possible that Kevin has him in sight – even if Neil’s phone doesn’t have a camera there’s at least two on the building, and another on the stop light at the corner. That reason alone has the mocking, false smile painted across his face, and his suspicions are confirmed in the quietly muttered _fuck you_ that barely reaches through the speakers. “Really, I’m fine.”

Kevin snarls something foul and unintelligible into the phone. “I hate that I can’t tell if you’re lying.” Fae cannot lie; there’s too much power to be found in words, in truths, for the opposites to come easily. In his lack of magic, Neil finds that untruths come easily. “This isn’t your world, Neil.” The barb doesn’t stick; Kevin is always cruelest when he is feeling inadequate. Neil understands. He remembers how it was before.  “You should wait for me. Or,” and here the quiet loathing creeps fully into his voice, “Call Matt.”

It’s the fact that Kevin even suggested it that has Neil considering. It’s not that Kevin _hates_ the other members of the Containment Division, it’s just that he hates how much easier they’ve made his life. While it’s entirely possible (he’s seen it done. Neil remembers how it was before) for Kevin to hold the Bindings himself, it’s only the addition of the five other witches that has allowed him even the smallest luxury of a free moment. “Is moving me into the Foxhole Court really about me, or is it just your way of micromanaging my entire life?”

His silence is as good as a yes. “Neil-”

 _Kevin,_ he wants to snarl, but even at his most annoyed he remembers the rules by which he must live. “Dara,” and it’s not quite as satisfying, the softer sounds of his title, but it gets his point across. “Get here when you can. I will be _fine_.”

He slams the phone closed before Kevin can tell him exactly how wrong he thinks that is, and quietly murmurs thanks that there’s not a lick of magic anywhere in his phone for Kevin to otherwise manipulate into continuing the call.

* * *

The real estate agent is a tall, imperious Fae who does nothing to hide her hatred of Neil; he thinks it goes far beyond his attire and the way it doesn’t quite match with the polished marble and brass of the building lobby. It’s hardly the first time he’s encountered someone who looks at him like he’s – _Nothing. He’d had the word carved across his stomach by one of his father’s favorite blades when he was only six, just so he would always remember. Like the world would ever let him forget._

Some Fae _really_ don’t like people like him. He’s not sure if it’s because he has the tendency to disrupt spells just by walking past, or if it has more to do with the urban legend that all Humans are a result of inbreeding.

“Good morning,” he greets her with an impossibly fake smile; all teeth and sarcasm. The Fae have difficulty determining sincerity without any magical tells, but Kevin had warned Neil to be on his best behavior. He makes it as easy as possible for her to understand. “I’m here to look at #10.”

Her expression shutters, but minutely; she knows that whatever glamors she might have in place are useless on him, and for the brief moment it takes her to flick a glance down at the clipboard in her arms he wonders how much effort it must be for her to not rely on magic to mask her opinions. He’s never had it as a crutch, so it’s easy for him. “I was told to expect the Ciarrìgh,” she says. Her voice is as sharp and unsettling as her stare, and she doesn’t refuse eye contact so much as refuses to look in his direction at all.

Neil offers only a small wave of his hand. “You know how he is.” There’s no effort to hide the way her expression sours; she _doesn’t_ know how he is, and she hates that Neil does. Even though he’s nothing, his associations lend him a status by proxy that even she can never hope to achieve. “He’ll be here eventually.”

The Fae flutters, her eyelids mimicking the nervous motions of wings. “We’ll wait.” It’s firm; not a suggestion.

The more uncomfortable the Fae becomes, the more Neil finds himself enjoying the experience – it’s only fair he turn this around, given how the Fae Court as a whole has made his life. “Well,” and he leans against the wall; the Fae blinks like he’s wielding iron in her presence. Like she’s in pain. “Since I’d be the one living here, I don’t think he’ll mind.”

The ensuing silence is almost tangible, a heavy weight blanketing the room, and it’s only the split second where his bones feels like they fit and his body doesn’t feel the urging of _danger, run_ across his skin that he realizes her reaction – shock and indignation, with hints of fear. He’s learned to read facial expressions much in the same way magic users have never learned to hide them. – has shattered whatever spells she wears. “The _Foxhole Court_ ,” and the words are as heavy as the silence they break; there’s power in Names, and even this nickname for the building carries presence (the Foxhole Court houses the Summer Kingdom’s most valuable magical assets, and names itself after the orange-furred animal that is seen as a symbol of wisdom. Of the guide). “Is for the witches and Fae of the Containment Division. _Not_ for you.” Not for Humans, she doesn’t say. She doesn’t need to.

His sarcastic grin returns; she’s looking at him now, like he’s a stain, but at least she sees it. “I’m an exception.” Technically, he’s not lying. He keeps himself safe on these technicalities, guarding his words and guarding himself against the words of others – there’s power in words, even when he has none of his own. “The Ciarrìgh has requested my continuing presence within the Court.” Also not a lie through the technicality of half-truths, but he lobs the words like fireworks and watches the resulting flares of emotions across her face.

Another flutter. Whatever she’s thinking, it’s left her disquieted. On edge. She fidgets like she’s looking for an exit route (and he only recognizes the body language because it is his own, the heartbeat race for contingency plans). “That may be,” and there’s a similar guarding of her own words now – Fae cannot lie. There’s power in words, especially theirs, and even a falsehood spoken without intention can weave itself into a new Truth. When they must, they rely on the technicalities and the halfway truths, the lies of vagueness alone. “But there’s little to do for work for your kind.” She says it this time, rather than talking around it. “This is an expensive neighborhood.”

He shows his teeth like a threat. “I am a kept man.” Neil’s phone immediately buzzes in his jeans pocket with the angry hornet’s nest wail of a text message, then another, and another. He counts eleven before he stops counting entirely. “What other purpose could the Ciarrìgh possibly need me for?”

Her face falls into something stony and furious as the wasp-like buzzing against his thigh grows stronger; he doesn’t check the screen, but he smirks an all-too-innocent smile for the security camera in the corner of the lobby and considers the way that the lights flicker in the same frustrated tick the fae’s eyes had his revenge for the previous week’s lunchtime interrogation. “I see,” she murmurs, voice gone hard at the edges. “Well then.” There’s really nothing that she can say in response, so instead she shows him the apartment.

Neil expected that #10 would be on the tenth floor of the building – what he wasn’t expecting was for #10 to _be_ the tenth floor of the building.

The elevator makes a quiet, pleasing sort of noise as the gilded doors open to a similar marble and brass as the lobby, but on a much smaller scale; two tables at either side of the elevator hold vase of cheerful flowers and an over-jeweled lamp, and across the space is a single door with a gold 10 affixed to it. The waiting area is perhaps twenty square feet, the majority of which is taken up by a wall-sized portrait of the defeat of the Winter Kingdom. Even covered in blood and depicted as a series of brushstrokes on canvas, he flinches away from Riko’s face. “The elevator requires a key to get to any of the habited floors,” the realtor recites in a bored voice, and he flinches again to have forgotten she’s there. “So only residents of the Foxhole Court and a few others have access.”

“Others?” He can’t tear his gaze away from the painted Riko’s.

She doesn’t notice. “Councilor Wymack, the Court physician, and a handful of dignitaries have also been granted access, but I doubt they’d have cause to bother themselves with you.”

The sudden drop in even pretended politeness gives him the strength to turn his back on the painting (It scares him how realistic it is, how the tiny dots of white against the dark, almost black-brown of Riko’s painted eyes gave them the same cruelness they held in life. It’s been almost ten years since they last stood face to face, but Neil doubts he will ever truly forget that cold glare. Despite his best efforts.), but the realtor has already moved across the floor to unlock the apartment.

The front door opens into a large, open living area with floor-to-ceiling walls on two sides. Across the space is a wall, only fifteen feet long, that forces the room into a blocky u-shape; open doors at the either end of each arm of the ‘u’ reveal a bedroom to one side and a kitchen to the other. The apartment is fully furnished in what looks to be pieces taken out of the eighteenth century and put into place by someone who spent entirely too much time at Versailles, but Neil finds that he doesn’t actively hate it. The sunlight that peaks through the windows feels warm on his skin, and there’s no prickle-hum of absence that he feels around wards – if anything, the apartment feels as magic as he is (or isn’t), and that makes it feel remarkably... safe.

“Bathroom is through the bedroom,” says the again forgotten realtor, “and the balcony is back through the kitchen.”

Neil ignores her descriptions in favor of wandering the space, memorizing the layout and the number of steps from windows to doors to freedom – thirty from the front door to the bedroom door. Fourteen from there to the bathroom. He keeps his right hand on the wall as he walks his way back to the front door to start again. Thirty to the kitchen. Eighteen to the balcony. He measures the space, and his steps, three more times. “What about the missing area?” He doesn’t mean to ask aloud, but he doesn’t care that he does either; it’s a question, not a secret.

Whatever it is, it startles her out of hostility. “What?”

He keeps his right hand on the wall as he walks from the bedroom door – _ten feet_ – and then hitches around the corner into the main room – _fifteen feet_ – to the kitchen – _ten feet_. “The wall extends five feet into the kitchen and bedroom, and the bathroom isn’t large enough to justify it.” To make his point, he retraces the path with the left hand against the wall; it feels like nothing, like an absence. Like magic. “There’s a space in the middle of the floorplan.”

The realtor check her clipboard again, the edge creeping back into her voice from fear this time, not fury. “I don’t have anything about that. Maybe it just seems that way to you.” He opens his mouth again, more to breathe than to berate her, but she silences him by thrusting a stack of papers his way like they’re hurting her. “Do you want the space, or not?”

He doesn’t. He does. Even a mysterious void in the center of his apartment is better than going back to the basement.

He signs the papers.

* * *

After the realtor leaves, Neil walks the fifteen-by-fifteen path almost thirty times before he’s managed to convince himself that it’s all in his head. There’s no missing space in either of the rooms to the back, and it’s only the jutting protrusion to the main room that even had him suspecting it – the final pass into the kitchen has him thinking that maybe it’s nothing more than the pantry being larger than he can tell from the inside.

Then he sees the door.

It’s not a hidden door – or, at least, it’s not hidden anymore – but he knows it was never there on his initial passes; even painted the same sky blue as the walls, it’s all but impossible to miss the gilded double doors that now cover half of the living room wall. Every instinct he has, human and higher alike, scream at him to call Kevin. Instead, he steps closer to examine the scrap of paper taped just above the handles. _The dog comes with the furniture_ , it reads in looping script _, and will serve you will, as it has served me_. Neil is horrified at the thought – Kevin mentioned that the apartment had been vacant for over a month now.

His hand freezes against the handle when the final lines appear, inking themselves across the bottom margin of the page. _His binding spell is_ and then the words go fuzzy and swimmy in his vision like most spells tend to do, leaping from the page like fish, but he manages to catch the basic order and a second-grade level rhyme as the doors creak open.

In the center of an otherwise empty fifteen-by-fifteen room, resting like a sphynx with his eyes trained on the door, is a creature. To call it a dog would be an insult, both to the creature and to dogs everywhere, as it appears to the species as a meat cleaver would to a spoon: made of the same materials, certainly, but with the singular distinctive purpose of destruction. All black, with coarse shaggy fur and pointed muzzle and nose, the first thing of notice is the angry, burning golden eyes that snap to his before the door has finished opening.

The second is the wide, tooled leather collar around its neck that, even from his distance, absolutely _reeks_ of a binding spell.

Neil calms his brain with two concrete facts: the creature is a hellhound, and it is bound (he doesn’t delude himself into thinking it is harmless, only that it is on some length of chain) – apparently to his new apartment. The instincts to call Kevin have passed a scream, and moved into the eerie silence of cornered prey; perhaps sensing this, the hellhound’s mouth widens into a grin. “Well,” it greets him in a rough voice, gravelly from disuse. “You’re new here.”

It is only the knowledge that Kevin is already hurrying to the Foxhole Court from wherever he’s been that has Neil moving towards, not away. The paper – and the proclaimed binding spell, though he’s not entirely sure what a badly rhymed couplet would accomplish. Neil has got no magical ability to speak of but he spends enough time with witches to know the real deal when he’s got it – clutched in his hand, he crouches down to look the hound in the eye. “What’s your name?”

The beast eyes him with a fiery gaze, something akin to curiosity behind the appraisal. “My last master,” he speaks in a rumbling growl, “called me Dog.”

Surviving the world of the Fae as a human, and one without a lick of magic at that, means that Neil is always on his guard, guarding his words and guarding himself against the words of others. He notices the deflection before the hound has finished speaking. “I didn’t ask what your last master called you.” Specificity and directness were his greatest defense. “I asked what your name was.”

The emotion simmering behind the hound’s stare turns to a churning, almost reluctant respect. “You can call me Monster,” he relents slowly.

Neil considers. “What are you doing here?”

Lips curl back from bone-white teeth like a threat. “Haven’t you heard?” and the most pressing matter is that the hound hasn’t moved, hasn’t risen from his place on the tile, and how Neil _needs_ to know if that’s by compulsion or choice. That razor-thin distinction could mean the difference between life and death. “I come with the furniture.”

Despite the collar and the runes and the assumed spellwork carved into it, being around the hound makes him feel – uneasy. The apartment itself lacks the tickle against his skin of undetected magics, but there’s a familiar burst of static in the air around Monster; it prickles like a warning down his spine, the voice in his head whispering softly _danger, danger, danger_ and there’s something in the stare that hasn’t left his. It’s not a threat, but it’s the opposite of safe. “I don’t suppose you’re an optional feature?”

The clack of teeth and the puff of air from his nose must be a laugh. “Unbind me,” he challenges Neil, “and find out.”

If he knows any one thing, any one certainty in this world that is not his, Neil knows that he must never remove the collar; he knows it in the way every cell in his body is prepared to run, just at the thought of it, and the way the whisper in the back of his head is a shout. It’s obviously not meant for control, but containment – there was another. Neil doesn’t remember the paper until it flutters to the floor, forgotten; as he reaches for it, the swimming, Seussical words he can’t quite make out catch his eye. The wonder, the desire to _know_ , burns in his chest. “So, this binding spell actually works then?”

Black lips pull back from white teeth in what Neil can only hope is a grin – he realizes then how close they are, him kneeling on the floor at face level, and there’s no way for him to put space between them without admitting fear. Be fearless, he learned. “No, but I let him think that it did.” There’s a moment of time where Neil strongly considers scooting backwards across the floor, slamming the door, locking the apartment and never coming back; the collar around Monster’s neck reeks of a binding spell, but the knowledge that he has no way to control him terrifies him on a bone-deep level. His feral hopefully-a-grin widens. “I cannot harm my master.” Neil wonders if the dry, distressed snarl is meant to be comforting.

Specificity and directness. “Can you lie to your master?”

This time there’s no mistaking the grin in the hound’s expression, nor the gleeful tone to his voice. “Oh,” he rumbles with delight, tail beating against the tiled floor. “Oh, I _like_ you.”

It’s enough.

This time, when Neil pulls himself to his feet, Monster follows; he stands as tall as Neil’s hip at the shoulder, the tips of his pointed ears brushing against the level of Neil’s waist, and he hadn’t looked nearly as large on the floor. It’s a herculean effort on Neil’s part to not flinch away when the hound stands too close (within reach, Neil decides before either of them has stood from the tile, is too close) – be fearless. He presses closer instead, crowding the creature for space until _he’s_ the one to step away. “Are you bound to the apartment?” Neil gestures for the hound to walk first through the doorway, “or to the inhabitant of it?”

Monster sits back on his haunches, refusing to turn his back. “I’m able to leave the building.” Neil swears that there’s smugness in the set of canine smile, in the way he answers without answering, and he thinks the part that makes him most annoyed is that it’s the first time someone has used his rules against him.

“That’s not what I asked,” Neil tries again.

“It’s technically an answer.”

* * *

The television turns on to Kevin’s face, the interior of the elevator in the background; the lit numbers behind him are counting down the time to his arrival – second floor, third floor, fourth, fifth. He’s not smiling. “I told you to wait,” he half-commands, voice stern.

Neil leans closer to grin at the screen, absolutely unrepentant. “You also told me this wasn’t an attempt to control my life,” and Kevin’s expression further sours but he doesn’t give Neil the satisfaction of a response; beside him, the number eight button lights up and casts the tattoo on his cheek into stark contrast. “The apartment came with a dog.”

Monster snarls a silent objection to the classification, drowned out by Kevin’s sharp “What?”

Neil shrugs. The number nine lights up behind Kevin as his face grows larger in the frame – he’s moving toward the doors. “Not technically a dog. He’s bound to the apartment, so I guess I’m stuck with him.”

“What the fuck do you mean there’s-” Ten. There’s a faint _ping_ of sound from beyond the front door, and the television cuts out; a second of silence and then a key turning in the lock (it doesn’t surprise him, that Kevin already has a key). He comes in like a thunderstorm, dark eyes and a dark expression and a rumble of thunder in his chest, “a do-”

Kevin crosses the threshold, and instantly collapses.

He doesn’t get up.


	3. Chapter 3

* * *

III.

* * *

 They don’t allow Neil into the hospital room. He’s not sure if it’s because he’s not on the list of what they might consider ‘family,’ or if he _is_ and they’re just concerned he might somehow short out the machines by simply breathing. (And he wants to be angry but he can’t, not when Kevin is lying pale and pathetic in a hospital bed and surrounded by strangers. It’s public record, his medical history and his allergies and his blood type, but the doctors don’t know that he prefers to sleep on his stomach, not his back, and that he needs absolute silence in his bedroom but at least two sources of light. It doesn’t matter if he’s on the approved list or not, Neil is Kevin’s family and he needs to be in there, he _needs_ -)

He startles at the light touch against his arm; it’s Matt. “Hey bro,” and he bends down to pull Neil into a short hug. “How’re you holding up?”

When Kevin collapsed, Neil’s first thought had been to call Matt. It wasn’t just that he was the closest, only a few floors down now (and someday Neil might have the time to enjoy that, having the closest thing he imagines to a best friend only a short elevator ride away), but Matt was also the largest; it would have been impossible for Neil to get Kevin’s deadweight to the elevator. Matt had been the one to call Wymack. “I’m fine.” Fae cannot lie, but Neil can – in his mind he keeps going over the moment where Kevin’s eyes rolled back and his skin went white and he suddenly wasn’t Dara, the Second, the Ciarrìgh, one of the most powerful beings in history. Instead, for a single moment of time between the door and the floor, he was Kevin Day again.

Kevin Day was awfully, achingly fragile.

It’s been a lifetime habit of Neil’s, putting himself between Kevin and the world, and now there’s a glass wall and no fewer than seven doctors separating them at a time when Kevin needs him most. The hum of the hospital and the sterile burn of antiseptic in his nostrils are all too similar to the last time he was here, the last time he fretted in an uncomfortable chair in the hallway while strangers poked and prodded Kevin in the other room. He’d been conscious last time, at least.

Matt sits next to him with an expression like he’s not sure he believes Neil; it’s only their long period of friendship that has Matt even suspecting an untruth. He hasn’t gotten used to Human customs, not entirely, but he’s at least familiar with them. “Have the doctors said-”

“They haven’t said _anything_.” Fear and frustration bleed themselves into his words, choking in his throat like the knot when he tries to swallow. “At least,” and now he _is_ angry. He knows for a fact that it’s _his_ name in Kevin’s file as both emergency contact and medical proxy, a mirror to his own, but it’s either prejudice against Neil or preference against Kevin’s position that has the doctors ignoring it. “Not to me.”

A long arm snakes around his shoulders for a second time; this time, instead of squeezing, it rests comfortably. Matt is a good foot taller than Neil is, especially tall for a sylph, and it’s a comforting presence at his side – it blocks out that side of the hallway, and he thinks maybe he grew a bit too used to his basement exile because the now that his world consists of only the chair and the room across and his friend and the hound that lies bored and restless at his feet, he can finally take a breath. “Neil,” and Matt’s voice is low. Not quite a whisper, but a low mutter and his lips don’t move and Neil startles to realize that it’s probably being spelled. “If the Ravens couldn’t kill him, nothing can.”

It’s like ice water down his spine, the sudden shiver at the words. Of course the Foxhole Court knows Kevin’s past, knows how he came to them, but Neil doesn’t think it’s ever been mentioned aloud (words have too much power in this world. Sometimes they are better left unspoken). “That’s not-”

Whatever it is, or isn’t, the words die in Neil’s throat as the door to Kevin’s hospital room swings open – it’s not a doctor who emerges, but Councilor Wymack, who is both the head of the Containment Division, and Kevin’s biological father. Neil’s only met him once, nine years ago. “Matt,” and the sylph snaps to attention with military precision. “Coffee. Now.”

He rises with a puff of air that ruffles the hairs on Neil’s arm. “Two sugars, yeah?”

Wymack briefly squeezes the bridge of his nose between his fingers; he looks tired. Old. It’s a startling look for him. “I don’t care, it’s for you.” Matt takes the hint, disappearing down the hall with a final touch to Neil’s shoulder. He fidgets, suddenly thrown into a too-large space with too many lights and sounds and Councilor Wymack standing across from him. “You,” there’s a finger jabbed in Neil’s direction. “In. You,” and this time the gesture encompasses the doctors that swarm around Kevin like ants. “Out.” When it’s just the four of them in the room (Monster had padded silently into the room after them, and had managed to either get himself completely overlooked or completely underestimated by the occupants), Wymack drops into a chair in the corner and suddenly looks every second of his exhaustion.

“Any idea what happened?” They drop any pretenses once the lock clicks at the door; Neil takes Kevin’s chart and takes up residence at the foot of his bed, flipping through the pages like they mean anything to him. He understands maybe one in every three or four words, but it’s enough to paint a rather bleak picture – _coma_ and _unknown_ feature more than once in the narrative, and too many spaces are left questioningly blank. Whatever’s wrong, they don’t know what it is.

Wymack doesn’t look at him. “I feel like I should be asking _you_ that.”

He’s only met the man once, and the meeting hadn’t gone well; Neil can’t help the way his spine stiffens at the remark and he leans away, out of Wymack’s space and into Kevin’s. “He collapsed.”

“Neil-”

“He collapsed, and he doesn’t have any injuries.” He hadn’t needed the chart for that. In the seventy-one seconds it took for Matt to whisk the elevator up to the tenth floor, he’d patted Kevin down for any signs of bumps or bleeding; there had been none. Aside from the tattoo on his cheek and the scars on his hand – both old injuries, nine years going on ten – Kevin appeared to be in pristine condition. “So it’s a magic thing.” Neil shrugs sarcastically, defensively, and changes his position so he’s now seated between Wymack and Kevin entirely. “Nothing I would know anything about.”

To his credit, Wymack doesn’t rise to the challenge that Neil has been quietly issuing; instead he sighs, sounding _old_ , and squeezes between his eyes again like he’s got a headache. “I won’t pretend to understand what you two went through with the Raven Court. And we know what they did to him,” he gestures over at Kevin’s prone form, looking far too pale for Neil’s liking. They call Kevin the Ciarrìgh for a reason; right now, the so-called Dark King is nearly the same shade of washed-out as the hospital sheets. He’d needed seven blood transfusions after the operation to save his hand, and hadn’t been even half as pale then. “But you have both remained rather frustratingly silent on anything relating to _you_ , in particular.”

“I’m not important.” It sounds angry, defensive – Neil’s spent a lifetime trying to prove he was worth more than the words carved into his flesh and stamped into his license only to argue their case now. It’s not the most he’s given up to protect Kevin, or even the most painful. “He is.”

A quiet exhale is the only response, and then Wymack rises from his chair; this time, when he reaches the door, he _does_ look back at Neil. “I wish you would _try_ to trust me one of these days.” The lock clicks open, and there’s a sudden pop of pressure change as the action releases whatever wards Wymack had settled over their conversation. Dimly, Neil can hear the return of the bustling hospital noises in the hallway. “I’m going to go get the doctors. You’re welcome to stay.”

The kindness rankles. “I don’t need your permission,” he mutters like the child neither of them ever got to be; it’s not only Kevin who learned to hide his failings beneath sharpness and cruelty. “According to all of the paperwork, _I’m_ his next of kin.”

“I know.”

Neil almost feels bad for the way that both his words and his face fall at the admission, heavy with sadness and regret.

* * *

Exactly twenty-four hours (To the minute. To the _second_ , even, which Neil knows only because Kevin’s watch had cracked against the tiled floor) after he fell unconscious, Kevin wakes up. The doctors surge around him with a series of tests, questions meant to measure what, if any, was the damage caused to his brain – they already know there’s been none to his body – which Kevin refuses to answer until they allow Neil into the room. “Get out,” he orders and, for once, they obey.

“What do you remember,” Neil greets him. He’s intimately familiar with the aftercare of head injuries.

“I’m Kevin Day. You’re Nathaniel Wesninski.” It’s like pressure behind his ribs, his Name, like a hook in his chest attached to a line that can be _pulled_ – Names hold power. Knowing a person’s Name gives you the other end of that leash. It’s a comfort, that Kevin remembers those four words; with them, he can rebuild whatever damage may have been caused from the coma. “We’re in South Carolina,” he looks around with disinterest, “in a hospital. It’s April.” Short-term recall gradually bleeds in; Neil can tell by the way annoyance slowly paints itself across his face. “You got an apartment...”

Neil smiles. Kevin’s okay. “I’ll go tell the doctors that any brain damage they find has been around since before this.” He dodges the pillow that’s thrown, but not the clipboard, “They want to keep you another day for observation, so-”

“Beltane.”

Kevin’s halfway out of bed before Neil manages to wrestle him down, and then only accomplishes anything by a snarl of his Name that leaves Kevin glaring at him, betrayal in his eyes. “It’s the twenty-eighth. There’s time.”

He struggles up from the pillows again. “Not if they keep me for-”

“Sit down,” and it says enough about Kevin’s condition, the exhaustion that he must be lying about, that he listens. “If they keep you for a night, you’ll get out on the twenty-ninth. Not to mention the fact that there are _five_ others in the Containment Division who were maintaining the Bindings before you were born.” Kevin grumbles something likely disparaging beneath his breath, but makes no further attempts to get out of bed; it’s not that he forgets he works as part of a team, but more than he acts as though he does – Neil blames it on their childhood. They weren’t allowed to rely on help, or even accept it. “They can manage without you.”

Kevin makes another quiet, half-hidden noise of disbelieving disagreement that Neil ignores. “Neil—”

“No.” He knows that tone of voice, hears all the ways that Kevin is expecting him to refuse but is planning on asking anyway (and, when asking fails, convincing). It’s the same voice that got him out of the basement in the first place – the voice Neil cannot say no to, not after everything they’ve been through. “Whatever it is, no.”

He smiles and it looks fake – it is fake. Neil can count on one hand the number of real smiles he’s seen on Kevin’s face, and none of them had ever been directed at him. “I can always teleconference.” It startles a laugh out of Neil; Kevin does not _teleconference_ , and it’s surprising to learn that he even knows the word at all. Part of the reason they still live out of each other’s pockets the way they do is that they both hate to use the phone.

Neil returns the false expression with a real one, smile morphing to a grin when he sees the sharp corners of Kevin’s eyes soften into something halfway genuine. “You’re so full of shit,” he tells him, and the softness vanishes into a glare.

“If you’re making me stay, I’m making you go.” He settles back into the pillows, looking regal as his namesake, and deliberately shows Neil the screen of his phone as he dials the number from memory; Neil’s buzzes in his pocket, loud as angry wasps. He snaps it open in answer. “Go to the Court,” Kevin instructs from two places at once, his voice chasing itself in a half-second echo, “and keep me on speakerphone.”

For a second of time, Neil considers hanging up; Kevin must see it on his face, because the next thing he throws is the water bottle from beside the bed. “Call Matt,” and Neil already knows that he’s going to agree by the way that he directs the words into the phone’s speaker.

A noise that is half-laugh, half-sigh comes in jolted near-unison; it is a simpler, more human sound than many would expect of the Ciarrìgh, than he would allow them to see. Neil does not know the magician, but the man. It’s an important distinction, especially in this world. Sometimes, Neil thinks that they accidentally left Kevin Day behind when they fled the Winter Kingdom; these moments, few and far between, are his reassurance. “I don’t want the Foxes to have my number,” Kevin admits both from the bed and the speaker, petulant. “They might try to call me.”

“They don’t want to talk to you unless they have to.” Neil does hang up the phone now, finding another smile at the irritation that paints itself into the lines of Kevin’s frown. “Even if they have to.”

* * *

Almost without thinking about it, Neil finds himself at the Containment Division for the first time in six years. (“Don’t touch anything,” Seth snarls when the wards drop to let him in – they flash once, twice, cloyingly slow in the air when Monster crosses the threshold, but ultimately allow him to enter. Neil isn’t sure if it’s because he’s not a threat, or because Kevin is shouting in response over the line to let them in. “Don’t fucking breathe on anything.” Seth disliked Neil even before that single day from before when he somehow managed to undo eight months of Seth’s work.)

Matt greets him with a hug. “Neil!” Dan chirps, reaching out to ruffle his hair in a way he claims to hate; she’s only an inch taller and a few years older than he is but she treats him like a much younger sibling, like someone barely older than a child at times. He would be mad, but he can’t remember anyone else ever treating him like that. “Hi Dara,” she mutters into the phone, decidedly less excited.

“How are you?” Allison asks, but she doesn’t care enough to give him a pause to answer. Instead she turns the question back to Neil, offering him acceptance into their group with the way she sits back in her chair and stays quiet for a few moments. “How is he?”

The Foxes – minus Seth – genuinely like Neil, and over the years he’s found that he genuinely likes them (with the same exception). It is a strange, sometimes unfathomable realization. “He’s fine,” and it’s not exactly the truth, but it’s not exactly a lie. Kevin is _angry_ , and it’s only Neil who can tell that he’s a little bit scared too; there’s no physical cause of the episode, and the exact timing of it (twenty-four hours. No more, no less) has distinctly magical implications. It’s not exactly the truth, but it’s nothing that either Kevin or Neil would talk about with anyone else, even the Foxes. “No lasting damage.”

Abby is not part of the Containment Division, but her relationship (Such as it is. Whenever Neil cares to ask, Matt doesn’t seem to know) to Wymack has her privy to it. After she shows Neil into the large room of the Court where they spend most of their days, she lingers at the edge of the group until Neil settles into a chair around their table; she surprises him with a light touch of a hand at his shoulder and a gentle smile. “We’re all very glad that the Ciarrìgh is safe,” and she surprises him further, “but how are _you_?”

“I’m-” _Fine_ , he wants to say, but he isn’t; Neil hasn’t been fine in a very long time, if ever. He can’t remember the first few years of his life, but he thinks he must have been happy – he hopes, at least, that he was happy. _Not important_ , he wants to say too, because he isn’t; Neil is important only because he is important to Kevin, and only then because he is useful. The Foxes would be the first to argue the point with him, and he thinks it scares him more than they would disagree than any actual disagreement might. _Angry_ , he wants to say. _Scared_. Kevin was meant to be untouchable here, and if the Summer Kingdom was not the sanctuary they assumed then their sacrifices to get here were worthless. “I got a roommate,” he says instead. “Sort of.”

He gestures at Monster, who exposes his teeth in show of exactly how he feels about being referred to as such.

Allison draws her fingernails across her lips. “Neil,” and of all of them, he thinks the concern is most surprising from her – the reason Neil and Allison get along as well as they do is that they both don’t care enough, or care too much about the wrong people. “I don’t know how to tell you this-”

“That he’s a hellhound? No, I know.” There’s a suspicious quiet both in the room and over the phone that draws his gaze; the others are staring, emotions carefully schooled into the blankness of years of exposure to his imperviousness to glamors – Matt has spent the most time with Neil over the years, but his expression looks the closest to fracture. Sudden pressure against his leg proves to be Monster, sitting up into a position that allows him a better view on the conversation; he looks almost pleased. The Containment Division is mostly tasked with maintaining the Bindings, but they’re also responsible for punishing those who violate them. “I know there’s a licensing issue with hellhounds being a Class Four creature, but he’s bound the apartment,” Neil explains calmly, shrugging off their concern like he shrugs off the words, “Not me. Technically there’s nothing illegal about it.”

Matt’s face falls into something pained, matching the low sound Dan lets out beside him; both are quickly smoothed over into the calmness of normalcy. Seth barks out a laugh that sounds anything but friendly, and Allison continues the light touch against her lips. “Yes, Neil,” and her voice is dry and brittle, cracking just this side of unkind, “because _that_ was the point I was trying to make.”

Static over the phone reminds him that Kevin is still on the line. “You fucking idiot,” and his voice is sharp and biting – Kevin is always his cruelest when he is feeling inadequate. “You really think that-”

In the ten years that he has known the Foxes, Neil thinks that Renee has spoken to him a grand total of four times; for three years, he hadn’t even known she was _capable_ of speech because she remained completely silent. Then Matt told him the truth: Renee comes from a long line of High Fae descended from Ekajati; her family are telepaths. It’s not that she _can’t_ speak, more that Neil can’t hear her, and he’s not about to ask her to speak aloud just for his sake – sometimes she does anyway. “We don’t care about the legality,” she tells him softly, and Neil startles as he has the other four times, because her voice is something entirely unfamiliar to him. “We just want you to be safe.”

Monster snorts, but meets Renee’s gaze straight on. “If I intended to kill him,” he tells her slowly, voice a rough contrast to her serene smile, “I would have done so already.”

Matt blinks, and the air in the room gets thin, tight with tension. “That’s not exactly a comforting reply.”

“I am not comforting.”

It’s the same bland tone of voice from his comments on his presence in the apartment and his non-answers to Neil’s questions; the one that, for peace of mind, Neil has decided means he is amused. The assumption – dangerous as it may be – allows him to react to the hellhound without fear. He laughs instead, and nudges the creature’s flank with his shoe ( _danger_ , his brain screams at him, and he buries the terror in the same dark corners that kept him alive in the Winter Kingdom. _Danger, danger, danger_ ). “It’s two days to Beltane and you’re short your most anal retentive member. I think you all have much more important things to be doing than worrying about me.” There’s a shrug of his shoulders that doesn’t quite pass his words off as joking.

“Neil-” Dan starts, and – she sounds like she _cares_ , genuinely does, and it’s too much and too strange.

“Seriously,” he interrupts; he doesn’t want to know where that soft voice was leading. “Shouldn’t you all get back to renewing the Bindings?” _Yes_ , comes Kevin’s emphatic snarl over the phone speaker, easily drowned out by Allison and Matt’s combined _No._

Dan raises a hand to the noise and the room falls quiet – she’s lead the Foxes for the past fifteen years at least, and done so with a soft smile and a hard-as-nails attitude that offers no room for arguments; even Kevin respects her, in his own way. “Alright Neil,” and there’s still that undercurrent of care in her words that Neil knows she’s left in on purpose – she’s agreeing with him without _agreeing_. “We’re moving on. As important as you are to us,” Allison winks at the way his mouth falls open into immediate protest, and Matt leans heavily against his shoulder to silence it, “we _do_ have other matters to attend to.”

Seth rolls his eyes and his shoulders to offset the boredom, leaning his chair back onto two legs. “It takes about twelve hours to renew the Bindings,” he tells the ceiling; Allison slaps at his thigh until he drops the chair back to a more stable four legs. “I really don’t see why we need to be worrying about this a couple of days in advance.”

“Would you rather _worry_ when the Bindings fail?” Kevin’s voice is sharp and cruel across the line, cold in that brittle way it always is when he speaks of the Winter Kingdom – which is not often, and not in any personal terms. He speaks of it as someone who has read every book, studied every paper; he speaks of it in terms of historical context. There’s too much of himself left behind to consider it any other way. “We change the warding spells eight times a year because they spend those six weeks _studying them_. It’s only a matter of time before they get lucky.” The Foxes don’t fully understand; they’ve never seen life inside Evermore.

Another roll and shrug that he knows Kevin can’t see, and Seth decides to answer. “The Winter Kingdom hasn’t made an attempt on the Bindings in six years,” he snarls.

“Excluding the attack on the Dara, you mean?”

Silence falls thick this time, heavy, and suddenly Neil finds himself on the receiving end of a stare that carries of the full weight of the Foxhole Court – the air gets thin and his ears pop and his skin feels too tight and too warm and it’s all the telltale signs of magic, lots of it, brewing like an electrical storm. He’s the last to turn his attention to the hellhound, still seated quite peacefully beside his chair, completely careless to the turn of tempers his words has brought. Dan rounds the table in a few short strides, looming with the spark of fire in her eyes; Neil has never, in ten years, seen the ifrit this angry. “Explain.” Her words hang in the air like the tension does, answering sparks at the binding collar Monster wears lighting up at the command.

If the binding has any effect on him, he ignores it. “I don’t know anything,” he says in that same bland voice – Neil has observed an almost total lack of expression in the hellhound except for three occasions, despite his seeming interest in his surroundings – and meets her gaze with pointed indifference. “We have that in common.”

Neil can read the change in the room as it happens; no longer are the Foxes the joking group of somewhat friends but the gathering of some of the most powerful beings in the Summer Kingdom, and theirs is not a wrath he wants turned even vaguely in his direction. He holds up one hand, a gesture for Dan to wait, and leans forward to brush the other against the fur of Monster’s neck to get his attention. “Why do you think the Winter Kingdom attacked the Dara?” he asks, and tries to keep it well out of the range of a demand, especially since Dan’s had set him off.

As if he’s aware of Neil’s blatant manipulation – which he probably is. The hellhound had been astonishingly knowledgeable of various procedures during their stay at the hospital with Kevin. There was nothing that Monster could have done to convince Neil he was a dog, and without trying he’s managed to convince him that he’s not a beast either. Neil would say there was something close to human about him if he wasn’t so sure the hellhound would take grave offense – Monster rolls his eyes. He also, however, answers. “The Dara suffers some form of magical affliction three days before the turn of the Wheel?” He shrugs, black fur rippling across his shoulder, and ignores the way that the Foxes have not quite relaxed. “I don’t believe in coincidence.”

“And we’re just supposed to believe _you_?” Unlike Dan and Matt, Allison had not risen from her chair – she didn’t need to. Her detachment is what makes her frightening, the way she seems almost not to care, even though the small sparking storm clouds in the air suggest otherwise.

Monster’s voice goes flat and bored again. “I cannot lie to my master,” he says like a recitation, but it’s an answer to one of the questions the hellhound had dodged on their first meeting. It’s enough for Neil.

“Do you still have any contacts?” He doesn’t direct the question at anyone in particular, but Kevin knows anyway.

There’s a hum of agreement over the phone, a familiar noise that means Kevin has caught on to Neil’s line of thinking without needing to ask; they’ve spent almost their entire lives relying on the other and no one else, and half of that in a world where they could not trust words where anyone might listen. They’ve learned through necessity to speak without speaking. “A few.”

“We need to know what the Winter Kingdom is planning.”

There’s a few muffled noises over the line and a few loud phrases in the background before Kevin speaks again. “They’re not letting me leave until they can finish checking me over,” he explains, traces of petulance that Neil thinks he might only notice because he’s looking for them. Of course he’d tried; it would take nothing short of death to keep Kevin from the Bindings, and even then he would probably find a way to manage.

Matt leans his elbows on the table, crouching down lower over the phone (most have scrying mirrors built in to the screens, for face-to-face conversation. Matt is familiar with Human customs, with Neil, but some habits are hard to break). “I’ll go,” he offers, smile twisting into a scowl when he remembers that Kevin can’t actually see him. Dan may be the Division Head, but after Kevin it’s Matt who is the most powerful; it only makes sense he go in Kevin’s place.

The suggestion, although logical, is met with a derisive laugh. “They won’t talk to you,” Kevin says, and even Neil can hear the truth in his voice. “You’d be lucky if they bothered telling you to fuck off before they kicked your ass.”

“I’ll go.” Neil silences Kevin’s immediate and insistent refusals with a hand over the phone’s speaker, but can do nothing for those of the Foxes except speaking over them. “I’m not a member of the Seelie Court. Technically, I might still be considered property of the Ravens. They would have no reason _not_ to talk to me.”

Matt’s reply comes with a sad smile that doesn’t quite meet his eyes; it’s the same look he gets whenever the rare mentions of Neil’s life before South Carolina come up, the one where he tries and fails for normal. “They could still kick your ass.” Neil doubts it; excepting his father’s people, most that he’s met are too reliant on magic to know how to fight, especially once they realize their magic doesn’t work the way it’s meant to around Neil.

“Take the monster,” Kevin gives his blessing with a terse order that leaves both Neil and the hellhound in question glaring. “Maybe he might actually be good for something.”

While the Foxes turn their protests toward Kevin, the six of them arguing across a phone line with barely intelligible words as if they’ve forgotten his existence, Monster cocks his head to one side and considers Neil with a gaze that is neither bland nor bored. “No,” and his voice is dry, but more with humor than disinterest, “I can’t see why _anyone_ would want him dead.”


	4. Chapter 4

* * *

IV.

* * *

The Gates, much like their larger cousins placed at the Bindings, are a combination of the work of magic and that of man; Neil doesn’t know the extent of the magic involved, only that each Gate has two witches assigned to maintain the wards, as well as an additional member of the Guard who holds the key to the iron lock. They stand as the only way in or out of the Gated Districts – neighborhoods, some no larger than a city block and others, like Columbia’s, some miles in size, where those of the Winter Kingdom not powerful or dangerous enough to be locked away in Evermore are free enough to live their lives, provided their lives never attempt to cross the iron walls. Columbia’s is six and one third square miles in size and boasts a population of nearly twenty thousand.

They are looking for, or perhaps have found, two. Neil check the text message for a fourth time, convinced he’s misread, but matches the address to that of the building; the bar (or nightclub? He’s not sure what the difference entails. He’s never been to either.) shares a parking lot with the Whole Foods one street behind, and the daylight hours reveal a well-kept flower garden lining the sides of the building. “It makes sense.” Monster had been delayed at the Gate for nearly an hour, and it was only Kevin screaming through an official line that allowed him through (Neil is still wary about him being allowed to leave, though he’s said nothing aloud on the matter). It’s the first thing he’s said since. “Everyone talks to the bartender.”

“According to the Dara,” and Neil turns the phone to display the text messages, not even sure if Monster can read. He stares intently like he might. “These guys are actually the owners.”

Monster shrugs, an all too human gesture on his canine frame. “Your phone is a piece of shit.” He changes the subject with the dry voice that Neil has heard only a few times, the one where it’s obvious that the hound has a sense of humor, a personality beyond the blandness of his bindings – the one where it’s obvious that he’s a bit of an asshole. Neil doesn’t know entirely how they work, only that if they were intended to make a mindless pet of the hellhound, they’ve failed. It’s something that he should probably tell Kevin, but the thought of somehow further enslaving an obviously intelligent creature burns painful in his chest; he’d been on the other end of freedom once. He knows all too well the feeling of having your will slowly ripped away.

Neil doesn’t know entirely how Monster’s bindings work, but that doesn’t stop him from feeling any less guilty that they exist.

* * *

The interior of Eden’s Twilight is dark, though not the intentional dimness of a supposed atmosphere – it is the darkness of disuse, the starkness of a winter coat hanging forgotten during the summer months. It feels like a place outside of time, darkness waiting for night to fall around it, and the air conditioning is turned up far too high for the mild temperature.

The double doors open to a wide dance floor, tables lining three of the walls; the fourth, the farthest, is the bar. It curves elegantly outward, a myriad of color-changing bulbs set into the recesses beneath the surface that look strange unlit, and is backed by a floor-to-ceiling mix of mirrors and bottles. The only light are the overhead fluorescents, one at each end, that bring the surrounding area into a jarring false daylight. Behind the bar stand Kevin’s contacts within the Winter Kingdom. “Nicholas Hemmick,” Neil reads from the screen; even without magic he can feel the weight of the Name in his mouth.

The taller of the men raises his glance, looking Neil up and down with a slow examination that leaves him feeling exposed. “Oh,” and his smile has the same slow feeling as his stare had – something languid, that matches the purr in his voice. “You can call me Nicky.”

He ignores it. “And Aaron Minyard.”

The blond doesn’t bother pulling his attention away from the computer screen. “You can go fuck yourself.”

The reception is about as much as he expected, Naming them as he had. Names were the oldest, most unbreakable spells in their world, and a person’s most closely guarded secret – Names, true names, could be used to bend a person’s will. It was only in the case of dangerous criminals that a person’s Name became a record of the Seelie Court, and only then as a means of barless imprisonment; rather than locked away, their power was limited. Nicky and Aaron – cousins, the text explains – are criminals not by action, but association: Aaron’s twin brother had killed a regiment of the Seelie Guard some thirty years before, and promptly vanished. His two remaining family members had been kept under close watch ever since, in expectation of his return.

“The Dara sent me.”

Aaron does look up now, but only to direct a look of tangible scorn in Neil’s direction. “The Dara can fuck off, too.”

From somewhere to Neil’s left comes the breaking of glass. Quietly, as if distanced, but the noise shatters against the tense silence like the shards that bounce across the concrete to rest near Neil’s feet. There’s a two beat moment of calm, and then another glass, this one closer. From the corner of his vision, Neil watches Monster’s form retreat from the closest table, head cocked as if in examination of the suddenly destroyed pint glass. “Oops,” he says into the resulting stillness, voice dry and smile crooked. Neil bites his lip to keep from laughing as he moves to a new table, resting his chin on the surface and flicking his nose to disrupt a third.

Nicky’s forehead furrows as if in pain. “Alright,” he says, and his voice has lost that syrupy quality from before; he sounds more human now (He is, Neil remembers reading. It was the twins who were half Fae, on the side of their unknown father). “What does the Dara need this time?”

There’s a quiet resignation in the question that delays Neil’s answer; it’s more than just the change away from the false flirting to seriousness – it’s the way Nicky suddenly sounds _tired_ , like a single mention of the Dara and he’s aged by years. The same mention that finally drew Aaron’s attention when even his Name could not. He knows these two were not Kevin’s friends from before, mostly because Kevin didn’t _have_ friends (Kevin had Riko, who called him brother but treated him as a pet, and Kevin had Thea), and he suddenly wonders how they became so beholden to him. “Actually,” and he fumbles here – Kevin had given him their Names to convince them he came with the Dara’s backing, but now it feels too much like compelling. “Just information.”

Aaron scoffs something foul beneath his breath and turns back to the computer monitor, ignoring Neil entirely. “It’s never _just_ information.”

Nicky silences his cousin with a quiet hand on his shoulder and a weary, warning look; Neil finds himself almost mirroring the action to end the rumbling that emits from Monster’s chest. “The Ravens,” and the cousins respond to the word with barely disguised flinches and grimaces – Neil had learned very early on during his years at Evermore that the majority of the Winter Kingdom actually despised the Ravens nearly as much as the Summer Kingdom did. Their cruelness did not recognize political borders. “Are planning something.” At this the question of a growl from the hellhound turns on Neil; he’s gone off script. The Foxes had stressed that the share of information not be a two-way street. The hand that had rested on his neck to quiet him earlier tangles in the fur above the leather collar, and Monster settles. “Something big.”

“And you think, what, exactly?” Aaron has stopped typing, but he doesn’t turn his gaze away from the screen – the neon blue light of whatever he has open turns the almost white of his hair a soft turquoise. It makes him look momentarily soft; he blinks, and the light highlights the shadows and hollows of his face and he looks painfully sharp. “That we’re somehow involved?”

There’s a sudden weight against his leg; Neil looks down to see that Monster has shifted his weight, resting it intentionally against Neil to draw his attention. When he realizes he has it, he juts his nose forward in a _go on_ gesture that Neil absolutely does not understand. It becomes obvious the moment he sees the blank confusion in Neil’s eyes, because the gesture is repeated with greater force and aggression; Neil understands that he is meant to be doing something, but the nature of the something is what he’s questioning. He raises one shoulder, the one farthest from Nicky and Aaron’s line of sight, in hopes of clarification. “These guys are actually the owners,” he murmurs in a gravelly parrot of Neil’s own words, and makes that same gesture urging Neil on; this time his eyes flick away from Neil’s and land on the wall of bottles.

At first the only thing that registers is frustration – if this had been Kevin at his side, he would have understood from the first gesture (If he had needed the prompting at all. He and Kevin always worked best at each other’s sides.) – and a following of resentment; Neil does not like relying on others. Dependence reads as helplessness to his brain. He buries the feelings to focus on the clues given: his earlier words, and the bar. It takes him a moment, but he gets it; the hand in Monster’s fur scratches against a spot under his jaw to signal his gratitude. “What I think,” and Nicky and Aaron break away from their own wordless conversation, “is that everyone talks to the bartender.”

Aaron’s responding laugh is not kind.

“You’re not involved.” Both of the cousins look up at the certainty in his words – Neil did not realize that he didn’t consider them as threats until he spoke it, but the truth cannot be easily taken back. “And maybe no one who comes here is. But people talk, and everyone talks to you. All I’m asking is that you keep your ears open, maybe ask around.”

There’s a moment of heavy silence, tense between them, before Nicky and Aaron turn their heads for another unspoken discussion that halfway through devolves into a spoken argument, the words couched in whispered German. He gives them a minute or two of snarled comments regarding _why_ they should, especially for _him_ – and he has no doubts that the ‘him’ in question is not the Dara. Aaron makes occasional glances in Neil’s direction with abject hatred in his eyes. – before interrupting. “ _He_ ,” and it’s been years since he’d used the language for any real purpose, forcing him to keep his comment short, “ _is standing right here_.”

Nicky smiles, and it’s not as bright as the fake one in greeting but it’s something real, at least. “Alright,” and even Aaron seems to uncoil the tension in his shoulders. He doesn’t look any less like he’d like to curse Neil into an early and painful grave, but he also doesn’t look like he plans on acting on the urge. “Alright, give us a week or so-”

His smile is brittle, apologetic; Neil hates asking for things, especially from those in positions forced to obey him. There’s too thin a line between asking and taking, request and command – the Ravens had not raised him with a concept of choice. “Tomorrow.” He masks the word in as much softness as he can scrape from within him, the last dredges that haven’t been lost to survival. “I need to know by tomorrow.”

Nicky’s eyebrows are lost beneath his bangs, but his smile doesn’t crack. “I don’t know how much I can find out in one night,” and Aaron is muttering again, beneath his breath. Neil can’t hear the individual words, or his brain can’t tell where one ends and the other begins, but he suspects it’s meant to cause some type of harm. “But okay. Yeah.” It’s polite, almost friendly, but there’s a palpable dismissal about the words; Aaron goes back to the computer and Nicky goes back to slicing limes and the room seems smaller. Colder. It’s entirely and suddenly unwelcoming. “You can come back tomorrow,” Nicky calls at them over his shoulder, almost as if he’s surprised they’re still there.

“Leave the mutt at home,” Aaron’s growl follows them out the doors and back into the sunlight.

* * *

It’s quiet the first few blocks from the nightclub back to the gate; finally, Monster breaks it with the rasping huff of a noise that Neil interprets as a laugh. “I can’t believe they didn’t try to curse you,” and there’s a mocking tone to his voice, like he might have welcomed the occurrence. It’s a cold reminder that despite their living arrangements and brief moments as allies, the hellhound has every reason to despise him.

It’s not a feeling he’s unused to. “Maybe they did,” and he shrugs his shoulders against both the words and the weight of the hellhound’s stare; the golden eyes had locked onto his frame at the words, calculating, obviously noting the lack of apparent effect of the potential spells. When he blinks, there’s a foot more of distance between them.

“I’m amazed you’re still alive.” Maybe Neil laughs at the words, or grins, or twitches. Maybe the hound is just looking to elaborate. “Not only the curses,” he’s quick to add, with the same verbal dismissal as Neil had given the suggestion; Neil doesn’t offer much weight to the thought because he knows that, for whatever his lack of magical ability is worth, he’s at least incidentally immune to curses. From the way Monster shrugs off the idea as well, he assumes the same thought has reached the hound. “Because you’re such an idiot.”

He does stop walking at that. “How so?”

There’s a touch of incredulity in the gaze now, quickly buried beneath a curled lip and a scoffing laugh. “You asked two criminals if they would maybe perhaps be kind enough to put their necks out for you – you _asked_.” Teeth snap in frustration a few inches from Neil’s hand, but he doesn’t even flinch; the words _I cannot harm my master_ repeating through his head alongside a reminder to be fearless. Instead, he shifts his weight to one side to close the gap between them and is rewarded with the half-second hesitation in the hound’s step. “The last resort of the Foxhole Court and you’ve tossed it all out with no guarantee.”

“I have their word-”

“What if they _lied,_ Neil?” Neil is a nickname, something he remembered his mother calling him when he was very young, before the Ravens (the only memory he had of his mother from before) – it pulls him to a startled stop in the middle of a crosswalk as if it were his Name in its entirety, only because it’s the first time the hellhound has referred to him by any address. If he notices, Monster ignores it. “You had their Names and-”

It’s a sharp scratch down his spine, the anger – he hasn’t let himself be angry in a very long time. Anger is too much of the Winter Kingdom for Neil to stomach, too close to the draw of a blade across flesh (both, he has experienced, can be deadly weapons), and he’s so unprepared for it that he doesn’t recognize the feeling until it’s clenching his hands into fists and twisting his face into something that resembles his father. Monster halts mid-stride. “I would _never_ ,” and Neil doesn’t recognize his own voice. His tongue is sharp on his best days, the days when he’s not afraid anymore, but it’s never been cold like this. “ _Never_ use someone’s Name to take what they weren’t already willing to give.”

Neither of them speaks again, beyond Neil’s sharp words at the Gate that has them passing through without the hour’s wait this time, until the brittle silence is broken by the slamming door of Neil locking himself in his bedroom.

* * *

The front door creaks open just before three in the morning, the shadowed figure making a silent, unerring path through the living room to the bedroom at the back; Monster’s strange center room is bypassed entirely. Instead the door to Neil’s bedroom is worked open, the single-bulb light on the dresser casting long shadows across the empty bed. The door to the bathroom – open – is to one side of the bed; the other door – closed – is the closet. When the closet door slides open, it reveals a small space lit by a tiny nightlight, and Neil’s blinking gaze. “Scoot over,” Kevin orders, and bullies his way down into the scrap of open floor between Neil and the wall.

Neil obliges as best he can, twisting his body until he can drape his back along the length of Kevin’s side and rest his head against Kevin’s shoulder; he puts himself on Kevin’s injured side, and leaves Kevin beside the small source of light. The other lamp is directly across from them, in clear view – neither of them is sure how it would affect his reputation, if it got out that the Dara was terrified of the dark, but Neil’s space has always been Kevin’s space and there’s no secrets between them. Not anymore. “You need a shower,” he says instead. “You smell like hospital.”

Kevin’s shrug lifts Neil’s torso without effort. “I didn’t want to go back to my apartment.” There’s a familiar tension in the taller man’s frame that Neil knows all too well is the strain of Kevin’s guilt – even as a child he’s attempted to bear the weight of the world on his shoulders. Some nights, it threatens to tear him apart. “How was today?”

How are _you_ , Neil knows he means. They’d never constructed any form of code when they were younger, mostly for fear that coded messages would read as obviously coded; instead, they learned to read the other as well as they could read themselves. Sometimes Neil thinks that the only part of his life that isn’t exhausting are the half-conversations he has with Kevin. “We’ll find out tomorrow.”

It takes a few moments and more than a few elbows to the spine for Kevin to shift Neil enough to sling an arm across his chest; when he succeeds, he absently taps his thumb against one of the scars he knows digs lines across Neil’s ribs. “I’m sorry I made you do that.”

“Which part?” Almost ten years ago, Kevin and Neil had made a series of promises sworn over blood and fire and five hundred miles of pursuit. You belong to no one but yourself. The Ravens will never have you. You will never go back there. Columbia is a far cry from Castle Evermore, but today’s short trip beyond the Gates was Neil’s first brush in proximity with the Winter Kingdom since he’d dragged Kevin free of the Bindings; he thinks that might be what set him retreating to the smallest space in the apartment. He’d always associated compact places with safety.

Kevin taps another, different rhythm against Neil’s side – this one he recognizes as a Liszt rhapsody, one of Kevin’s favorites. He’d been quite a proficient piano player, before Riko had almost destroyed his hand. “All of it.”

“S’okay.” He waits for the tension to bleed from Kevin’s frame, but it doesn’t. A combination of not being where he decided he was needed and the upcoming turn of the wheel, Neil guesses. “If we find out what we need, it will be worth it. Nicky said-”

“Of course,” and Kevin’s voice is sharp again, like it is with everyone who isn’t Neil. “Of _course_ you talked with him.”

Even at his worst, Kevin isn’t the worst Neil has dealt with – Kevin is jagged edges and a sharp tone, but at his deepest nature he’s harmless. Neil is the opposite, down to the bone sharpness with a hastily smoothed exterior, and it works for them. “Was I not supposed to?”

Kevin glares at the feigned innocence in his tone, and the two nightlights flicker in warning; there’s no crackle of static in the air, but rather the lack of it – Neil’s brain sensing the magic as nothing more than a lack of everything. “No.”

He’s tired. There’s the burn of sleeplessness behind his eyes and the cold weight of his father’s anger in his chest, and Kevin is bristling beside him; it’s a recipe for disaster. His elbow finds Kevin’s ribs with unerring accuracy and none of the glancing accidents of earlier. “I’m not _them_.”

The words are razor sharp, slicing through whatever strings of tension have kept Kevin as tightly wound and leave him slack; the threat of magic is gone, and Neil finds himself sharing a too-small closet space with a young man asked of too much. “No,” he repeats, softer this time. It’s an agreement. “And you never will be.” Once, when they were much younger, it had been Neil to assure Kevin that he would never become the darkness that surrounded them. “But other people... other people might.” Like his words had done previously, Kevin’s deflate whatever fight Neil might have held; Kevin is cruel and thoughtless, but only when he is scared (Kevin is often cruel and thoughtless. He is often scared). There’s an apology buried in the grudging defense of Neil’s character. “For someone with more trust issues than common sense, you’re far too trusting.”

Neil offers forgiveness by tapping the only two chords he knows on Kevin’s forearm and grinning out a casual use of his Name. “Fuck you, Kevin.”

There’s a quiet laugh behind him, and Neil feels himself finally falling asleep. “Fuck you too, Nathaniel.”

* * *

Kevin leaves a scant three hours later, returning to his own apartment – he claims, but Neil can already see the anxiety at being away from work for so long. If Kevin _does_ return home, it will be for nothing but a shower and a change of clothes on his way to the Court. They find Monster in the living room, glaring daggers at the television. “Oh,” he acknowledges in that same dry, bland voice; Neil hasn’t forgotten their last words of the day before, but it seems at least one of them isn’t holding a grudge. “It’s just you.”

Taking pity on him, Neil digs the remote out from the couch cushions and turns the television on; the hellhound looks momentarily alarmed, but hides it beneath a curled lip. “Who else would it be?”

“I was hoping that it was an intruder here to kill you.” Neil is half-tempted to switch the screen back off, but the huff of air after the sentence reads as an attempt at a joke – it’s unlike the hound, almost as though he’s making an effort to be his interpretation of nice. If it is an attempt to bridge the gap after the previous afternoon, Neil finds himself warming to the effort.

He smiles, faintly. “Unfortunately no,” and Kevin rolls his eyes, muttering again about stupidity under his breath. Neil waves him out the door without bothering to glance back, reacting to the gesture from familiarity alone, before going into the kitchen for only the second time since moving in – Neil learned to cook specifically because he first learned to distrust food that he did not prepare, but he does not enjoy cooking, nor is he good at it. It is, like many other aspects of his routine, intended only for survival.

“You’re not like the others.”

Monster’s voice from the doorway startles him; he hadn’t even considered that the hound would follow, so he hadn’t thought to expect a noise. He hides the flinch behind the motion of stirring the pot at the stove, forcing himself to keep his back turned, to show no fear. “I am aware.”

Another huff of suspected laughter, closer this time, and he finally turns to find the hellhound has moved to sit only a few feet away, watching intently. “The way you talk, the way you _ask_ ,” he falters here, inching closer, until his nose is barely six inches from the burner. “What are you doing?”

“Making pasta – you want some?” It’s second nature to him, to make enough for two. “Do you eat?”

Monster rumbles, ignoring the question. “But what are you _doing_?”

Surviving in a world of magic and myth has taught Neil many things, including the necessity of observation – the television remote, the burner of the stove, they’re all distinctly Human things. Monster has glared at them both with a mixture of interest and disdain, like he wants to understand but doesn’t want to admit it. “Boiling water,” he explains instead, the same way he has for Kevin and Matt and Dan over the years. “Electricity heats the surface of the stove.”

The hellhound turns on him with a sharp, skeptical expression. “I know how kitchen appliances work.”

“Do you?” There’s something that’s never been quite right about the hellhound, the way he interacts with the world; he doesn’t move like an animal, or talk like one. Aside from the form, he’s sometimes startlingly human – Neil has had questions since that first day in the hospital, but tiptoed around them for fear of crossing the obvious lines the hellhound has drawn. He won’t press, but he’ll take what’s offered. “Do most hellhounds?”

Instead of rising to the bait, Monster falters. His expression goes distant, far away and vacant like he’s momentarily elsewhere – lost in thought, perhaps. “I don’t... I don’t know.” There’s a disquiet in the moment of vulnerability, and Neil offers as much privacy as he can by turning his attention to the sauce. “I know I’ve boiled water before, and I know you’re doing it wrong. But I don’t-”

“Don’t.” It’s the first command that Neil has allowed to pass his lips, and even though the intention was to protect he feels the churning of regret in his gut. “You don’t have to tell me anything,” he tries again, a suggestion. An offer. “Unless you want to.”

Monster _snarls_ , bone-white teeth only inches from the arteries of Neil’s wrist. “I don’t need your pity,” he snaps, spitting the word out hatefully. When he speaks again, it’s as far opposite the spectrum of his outburst as possible; it sounds almost clinical, as though speaking on a subject from a textbook. “I know that there’s _something_ , but when I try to remember it’s blank, like there’s-” He shrugs, all too human, and the futility is tangible. It’s buried quickly under a blank voice and a rapid subject change. “I just know that you’re boiling it wrong.”

“How should I do it then?”

Another shrug. “Hellhounds can’t use magic.”

_They also can’t use stoves_ , Neil wants to say, but there’s an almost friendly feeling to the conversation that he doesn’t want to ruin – he knows it’s a fragile truce, the same way he knows further pressing the issue would break it. “Yeah, well,” and he puts distance between them to drain the noodles in the sink. “I can’t either.”

There’s a sharp, sudden bark followed by a raspy coughing sound, and Neil has to turn around to realize that Monster is _laughing_ (he wonders then, in that moment, what all those other expressions of presumed amusement were, if not this). It cuts off into silence, as quickly as it had come. “You’re serious.” If there had ever been humor in the voice, it’s gone now; he sounds as blankly detached as he did from his own history, from his mentions of his master – he speaks like everything that was involved in his personality had been scraped out. “You’re-”

“Yep.” He feels the way the word sharpens at the end like his tone, like a knife, because this is a war he’s been fighting as long as he can remember. Reaching behind him, he leans his elbows on the counter to keep from crowding into the hellhound’s space – _be fearless_ , he knows. “Not a magic user.”

For the first time since they met, Monster eyes him like he’s a threat. “You mean that you don’t know the spells, or-” It’s like he can’t comprehend the words to speak them; most who haven’t encountered someone like him before – fewer and farther between now. They don’t have the highest life expectancy. – have trouble understanding at first. There’s something about a being that exists so obviously in defiance of the world at large that most magic users want to deny.

“I mean that I have zero magical sensitivity.” And this time Neil is the one shrugging, one shoulder rising in a ‘what can you do’ gesture. “That’s why Aaron’s curses didn’t affect me.”

“ _Fuck_ ,” Monster snarls again, and begins pacing the too-small kitchen floor; Neil watches his track from stove to pantry and back, again and again and again, before the hound settles on his haunches just outside of Neil’s reach. “You went to Columbia, beyond the Gates, with no magic. You spend the majority of your time with the Dara, the Foxes. You – _fuck_.” There’s something off about his gaze when he meets Neil’s – whatever it is, Neil is sure that there’s something more to the hound, something beyond the bland voice and the brief threats. “You’re even more stupid that I thought you were. You deserve to be killed in whatever horrific accident you walk into when I’m not watching.”

There’s a smile twitching the corner of his lips, but Neil bites the inside of his lip to keep it hidden. “What about when you _are_ watching?”

With a final twist of his lips to expose his teeth and a hateful expression, the hound stalks back to the living room. “I don’t like sauce,” he snarls on the way out, and ignores Neil until they leave for Columbia.

* * *

It’s not good news.

It’s not bad news either – it’s nothing. No news at all, Nicky says with an apologetic smile. Everyone who came in was a regular, and no one seemed to have any word on the Ravens beyond muttered curses and dislike. He even called a few favors for them, he adds with another of those sly smiles in Neil’s direction, and as far as anybody has heard the Ravens have nothing planned for Beltane beyond the traditional celebrations. He’ll keep asking around, he promises. He’ll be in touch.

They leave Eden’s Twilight to grey clouds and a cold wind – _danger_ , the wind howls, and every hair on Neil’s body stands on end in warning. _Danger, danger, danger_. With a shared look and an unspoken agreement, he and Monster begin the twenty-two block hike back to the Gates at twice the speed of the previous trip.

Neil realizes they’re being followed after only seven.

“Five,” Monster growls from his place at Neil’s hip; he leans his weight against Neil’s leg, steering him off the main road and down a small side street, and it’s all but impossible for Neil to fight against it. The hound more than matches him for weight, and when he glances down with questions halfway formed on his tongue a sharp shake of the canine head has him swallowing the words. Neil rests a hand between the shoulder blades before risking a glance behind them, twisting his body to hide the move in a cough against his shoulder. There’s a group of five, deceptively normal-looking, a block and a half behind them – Monster vibrates with another growl in recognition that they are being followed. Neil’s fingers twist into his fur at the all black attire.

“Under their eyes,” he whispers, and allows Monster’s weight against his thigh to turn him across the street. “Across the cheekbone. Do they have a feather tattooed?”

Monster stares at him with the same crinkled gaze, the same twinkle of orange in his eyes that had been there through the mentions of his lack of magic, that he had sworn was not judgment but Neil was sure he had lied; there’s a press of weight against his leg though, like acknowledgement. “Unbind me,” and now his voice is soft. Hesitant. Neil wants to protest. He has methods for survival, rules that he follows because he _must_ , because this world was not meant for people like him – his rules never allowed for the accidental adoption by hellhound. He’s had to make unexpected, dangerous alterations. “Neil. You have to unbind me.”

“I-” He starts and stops like an idea.

_I cannot harm my master_ , Monster had said. “I will not harm you,” he promises. There’s power in those words.

With shaking fingers, Neil unbuckles the collar from his neck. Whatever wards tickle the skin of his forearms vanish, and what falls to the street is nothing more than a wide band of leather. Time slows. The air grows thick and heavy. The hound beside him inhales, taut like the string of a bow, back drawn tight and curved; he releases the breath and _lengthens_ , up and out and suddenly the space at his side holds a man. Blond hair so light it borders on white, sharp angles of his face, and a brittle smile that would look more at home on the Ravens that pursue them than anyone Neil would trust with his life. He turns, catching Neil’s stare with a familiar burning gaze, and – _oh,_ Neil thinks. He knows this man. Or rather, he knows this face; he’s seen its mirror image only ten minutes before, glaring him out of a nightclub.

“Neil,” he orders, and his voice has lost the hellhound’s gravel but none of its growl. “Don’t move.” He doesn’t let himself think about the command, only plants his weight and refuses to flinch at the sudden pop of nothingness against his skin as he’s engulfed in a flash of light and heat. When it vanishes, it leaves only the two of them and the scent of sulphur; the Ravens are nowhere to be seen, nor any trace of them.

It is the most effortless display of violence that Neil has ever encountered. All things considered, he probably shouldn’t be surprised.

The hazel-gold eyes turn down, examining his own form with something that could be confusion, but is too removed for any whole emotion. There’s a similar clinical detachment from before, when he had spoken of an inability to recall who, or even what, he truly was. Now they have an answer. “Hmm,” he hums, and shrugs one shoulder in a way Neil recognizes from the hound form. “That answers the what, I suppose.” Another shrug, more human this time, like he’s relearning old gestures. “Onto the who.”

Neil is startled by his own laughter, strung out on hysteria. He’s seen the file once, and only in context of the cousins – Aaron’s twin, the escaped murderer, who burned thirty-five members of the Seelie Guard to ash before fleeing to the Winter Kingdom. Mentally unstable, the file reads, and a consummate liar. As volatile as the lightning that burns in his veins. Not to be approached, and absolutely _not_ to be trusted. “You’re Andrew Minyard,” he tells him through a ragged breath that seems more panic than air, and feels the way that the Name seems to hiss an echo as it leaves his tongue.

“Am I?” He considers, but Neil knows the moment that recognition of the Name hits because any lingering traces of the binding spells that forced him into compliance vanish. The gaze shutters. The vacant smile falls. All that is left is a blank face and an overwhelming aura of malice. “Neat.”

He shoves Neil away from him, and storms off in the direction of the Gates.


	5. Chapter 5

* * *

V.

* * *

He doesn’t call Kevin. He knows, logically, that he _should_ – it’s not even a matter of Kevin’s position or his job or the fact that maybe, right now, he’s the only one who can handle the situation. It’s about trust, and secrets, and how Neil keeps both of those things with Kevin – but he knows Kevin well enough to know he can’t remain level-headed about this. Not when it’s a matter of the Ravens, and Neil’s safety.

Instead, he calls Matt.

“Just for curiosity’s sake,” he rushes to get the words out before Matt can speak, can ask questions, because there’s a good chance the sylph isn’t alone and however many of the Foxes are in the background would clamor to catch his answers. “The Foxhole Court has unofficially decided to turn a blind eye to the hellhound, correct?”

Silence meets his words, the eerie too-quiet nothingness that means Matt is performing some sort of spell – he only hopes that it’s meant to keep prying ears out. “Unofficially,” and he forgets sometimes, that Matt is the second most powerful member of the Foxes, and arguably the second in command of the Containment Division. He forgets that Matt’s mother is a captain in the Guard, and that he trained with them for nearly a century. It’s easy to, with all the times Matt has been smiles and laughter. It’s impossible now. While the voice that responds to him is inarguably Matt’s, the edge beneath it is unfamiliar and almost frightening. “Yes.”

There’s an unspoken command to elaborate; if it were anyone else he’d fight the order, he doesn’t take well to orders, but this is Matt, and he obeys. “Hypothetically speaking,” and the phone crackles into momentary static. It sounds angry, distressed. Worried. “Does that unofficially apply to whatever being the hellhound might be when he’s unbound?”

“Neil,” the word is slow, drawn out, dragged over sharp rocks for two seconds – it comes out like a threat. “What happened.” It’s not a question, but a command; Neil bites down the part of him that rankles under authority, that lashes out from a position of hard-won freedom, because above everything else Matt is his friend.

There’s too much to be told from an empty street and a useless band of leather, and too many potential ears that could be listening – he’s still fifteen blocks from the Gates, right at the fringes of the Winter Kingdom, but he would guard his words even at the heart of the Foxhole Court. Neil does not trust those of the Summer Kingdom any more than he hadn’t the Ravens; he’d traded a life of cruelty for one of its more civilized cousin of systematic discrimination, but at least Riko had been honest in his consideration of Neil as no better than an object. But again, as always, Matt is not his station and Neil trusts him. He thinks that he’s only ever considered that of two people. “I’m at the corner of Cross Hill and Seventh,” he answers without answering.

Matt sighs, voice heavy with every one of his hundred and seventy-nine years. “I’ll be there in twenty-five minutes. And Neil,” there’s another command buried beneath the concern in his voice. “Be careful.”

The line goes silent as the call disconnects, and Neil does what he should have done first thing – he calls Kevin. He doesn’t even hear a ringing, any acknowledgement that the phone is attempting its purpose; instead, his thumb brushes the button and before he can register the change Kevin’s frantic, familiar voice is all but bursting through the speaker. “Neil!” He sounds manic, as far from the steady, almost surly man he pretends to be as Neil has heard in years; in the background of the call Neil can hear street noises – screeching cars, muffled yelling. “Are you okay?”

Of course. He scans the surrounding buildings until catching sight of a traffic camera at the next intersection, waving sheepishly. The sharp, panicked breathing does not abate. “I’m fine,” he reiterates, just in case the preceding gesture wasn’t enough.

“ _Ciach ort_ ,” the following sound is an agonized cross between a sob and a sigh of relief, and Neil’s blood turns to ice in his veins – something has happened. Twenty-five minutes is suddenly a lifetime too long, and he could probably make it to the Gates and halfway to the highway in that time if he runs (every instinct he’s got is screaming at him to _run_ ). The last time he’d heard Kevin sound even remotely like this had been when they reached the Bindings for the first time and thought he’d thought he was going to die. “I thought you – the video cut out, some electrical issue. Everything on your street went-” _Dead_ , he doesn’t say, but it’s obvious he means it.

A second wave to the camera yields a similar reaction as the first – that is, none. “Kev,” and it’s risky, completely, using even this small part of his Name in such a public manner (the street is deserted and only five people know Neil’s got a phone, let alone his number, but the only reason he’s still alive is because he’s _too_ careful), but Kevin thought that Neil had _died_ and he sounds like he did when he actually _did_ almost die and more than caution and rules there’s a pull in his chest to look after his friend. “I’m okay, nothing happened-” It’s not entirely a lie. “There were Ravens, and then Monster... handled them.”

“Handled them.” It’s less a whisper and more an echo; the noises beyond Kevin’s stifled panic have gone silent. It’s only the sudden quiet – both his end and Kevin’s – that allows him to notice the faint tremor in the pavement. Ripples, not quite an earthquake, more of a shiver.

It’s not an earthquake, but a tremor. The day before Beltane and Kevin is at the Bindings, reworking the spells that seal the Winter Kingdom away – “I’m _fine_ ,” he says again, snapping it almost, and while the sharp bite of commands sting when turned on him he has no qualms doing the same for Kevin. “And if you don’t calm down you’re going to collapse the whole kingdom.”

“Don’t care,” he hisses, but he breathes. The tremor calms.

Neil taps a faint rhythm against his wrist, but it’s not the same; very little has been a constant in his life, and all of it is Kevin. “I won’t let you be him again.” And maybe it isn’t fair, dragging them both down these memories, but it’s the truth.

There’s a deep breath and a moment of quiet and then the voice on the phone is not Kevin’s but the Dara’s – it’s probably only Neil who would ever be able to tell the difference. “Any news?” He doesn’t refer to Nicky or Aaron by any sort of identifiers, not even mentioning the club, and Neil is irrationally grateful for whatever protection it offers them. He understands the meaning regardless.

“Nothing.” They’re back to half-conversations, another way of assuring the other that everything is fine. “There’s nothing.” Kevin hums a response, something wordless, something like he doesn’t trust his words; either Kevin’s with the Foxes, not alone, or he’s still in the mindset that Neil is gone. “Matt is coming to pick me up,” he changes the subject, because he strongly suspects that it’s the latter of the two options – Neil may not know much in this world, but he knows Kevin.

Kevin hums again. “See you at the Court?”

He can’t help the way that his eyes stray to the discarded collar – the markings have faded entirely now – and then back up the street; he knows, logically, that he shouldn’t chase after. It’s not only that Andrew doesn’t need protecting (and even if he did, Neil couldn’t be the one to do it. Whether it’s the Ravens or the Seelie Guard who want him, both come with powers he cannot match.); there’s a very likely chance that Andrew is the one that needs to be protected against. But Andrew had been lost for many years (and even a Name, Neil knows, is nowhere near to being found) and Columbia had changed. Maybe he needed protection that Neil couldn’t give, and maybe the world needed protection from him, but –

_I will not harm you_. The words rang as true as any proper spell, heavy like an oath, and promises like that, well they meant something in their world.

“I’ve got some stuff to do first,” he whispers, voice small so that Kevin can’t hear the not-quite-lies; he whispers because it makes him sound smaller, the exact size to fit into a small closet. He knows it’s not fair, using Kevin’s weakness (His weakness is Neil. Namely, Neil’s weakness.) against him. He also knows that anything else could potentially get Kevin killed – this is hardly the first time he has lied to keep the other man alive, and he suspects it will not be the last. “I’ll come by yours later.”

For a moment he worries that Kevin is about to protest, about to drop everything to come immediately to Neil’s side. It is the day before Beltane and the Bindings must be renewed before midnight, and Neil knows that Kevin would ignore all of that if he thought for even a moment Neil was in any danger (It’s should probably feel strange, knowing that the world’s most powerful man would allow an entire kingdom to burn to ash if it kept him safe, but it’s always been that way between them.). “Matt’s coming to get you?” he asks instead, and Neil lets out his breath in a tiny, relieved sigh.

“Yeah.” Twenty-five minutes is probably closer to fifteen at this point, but still too long for Neil to feel comfortable on this side of the Gates. He doesn’t say as much, but somehow Kevin knows anyway ( _predictable_ ).

“Be safe.” The demand trails off like there had been the intention of further words, an addition or a last minute change of direction, but instead the line clicks dead and Neil settles in to wait.

* * *

Neil hears Matt’s truck before he sees it – it’s not a particularly loud engine, but it _is_ distinct; Neil swears, mostly to himself but a few times now to Matt, that it growls at him. When it does swerve into sight, Neil moves out of the alley where he’s passed the last seventeen minutes leaning against a wall and fretting, and to the edge of the street. “I almost don’t want to ask,” Matt doesn’t smile, but he greets him fondly enough. Here as a friend, then, and not in any more formal capacity.

“That’s fine,” and it’s the work of a few silent seconds to pull himself into the passenger seat; Matt is over a foot taller than Neil is, and his truck is even larger still. “I don’t particularly want to tell you.”

It’s dark by the time he gets back to his apartment; doubly so for the lack of lights in the living room, and the expanse of glass has gone almost opaque with the nighttime. Neil isn’t expecting the single flare of a cigarette that flashes from the back corner, but he isn’t surprised by it either. “Figures. I spend all day looking for you, and you’re here.”

There’s another flash of red, another drag on the cigarette, and then the still unfamiliar cadence of a human voice where he’s grown accustom to a growl. The bit of red disappears, stubbed out against what Neil suspects is the coffee table, and plunges the apartment into total darkness. “Where else would I be?”

“Do you really want me to answer that?” Neil makes his way across the living room and around to the front of the couch by memory alone; his step-by-step mapping of the apartment during that first walk-through had been made with the intention of survival, not secret rooms. That had been nothing more than coincidence ( _I don’t believe in coincidence_ , Monster had shrugged. Neil can’t either – coincidence is just a softer sort of magic.). There’s a smell of ash and a void of nothing against his skin, the kind that means magic, as he reaches the couch; his suspicion is confirmed when his knee jostles against another as his sits. “It’s fine. You can stay.”

Sudden pressure against his knee translates to a hand at his neck, wrapped over the delicate part of his throat without applying any pressure – it’s not a threat, but the threat of one. “I don’t need your _permission_ ,” and same as that first time outside Eden’s, there’s a spark of something more to his voice; like maybe whoever Andrew Minyard was before he was stripped of his Name and bound away is starting to come back ( _danger_ , the hairs on Neil’s arm stand on end _, danger danger danger_ ). “I’ve lived here longer than you’ve been alive.”

He barely bites down the urge to laugh; Neil was raised on violence far greater than this and wears the reminders of it like a second skin. “Well that doesn’t count,” and now that his vision has adjusted he can see there’s no surprise in Andrew’s expression, but there is a grudging stillness. “You were décor.”

“I could kill you,” he tells Neil, the hand around his throat loose and easy; the thumb taps a rhythm against his collarbone like a code. It’s as distracted as Andrew’s voice, distant and unfamiliar. “You would hardly be the first person I’ve killed. You wouldn’t even be the most difficult.” The thumb taps twice and then goes still; Andrew doesn’t smile, but his voice goes carelessly blank in the way that just a few days ago Neil would have called a similar thing. “You might be the one I enjoyed most, though.”

Fae – even halfbloods – cannot lie, but instead of telling him to twist back, to _run_ , the only urge Neil fights is the one to shove at Andrew’s face like he would have with the hound. “May as well,” he grins. “We’re all going to die anyway.”

The hand tightens, but not enough to cut off breathing; instead, Andrew tosses Neil away from him and back onto the couch, rising to his feet in the same motion. “For someone who fought this hard to survive,” and _this_ is what sparks the whispers of warning in the back of Neil’s head, moreso than physical menace. Neil and Monster had spoken of many things, but Neil’s past had never been one of them – it’s _possible_ (Possible, but not probable. Most of the Foxes don’t even know how far back their relationship goes.) that he’s guessing based on what he knows of Kevin. It’s also possible, given thirty-seven years of question marks as to his location, that he knows quite a bit. “You’ve got a staggering amount of suicidal ideations.”

Andrew is halfway to his strange, center room before he turns back; this time, he does smile – it’s a gross parody of a sincere expression, all sharp teeth and sharp edges, more a predator that he’d ever been, even as a hellhound. “Go to sleep, Neil. Tomorrow’s the big day.”

* * *

The sun rises, and nothing happens. The Ravens don’t attack, and the Bindings hold.

Neil makes his way down to the Containment Division sometime around noon, nodding a solemn, silent greeting to the stone-faced Foxes around the table – the tension in the air is palpable. When he slides into the empty space beside Kevin, the shaking grip of his injured hand switches from the arm of the chair to Neil’s wrist, squeezing until the knuckles turn white. As afternoon turns to evening, he plays entire symphonies against the metronome of Neil’s pulse.

The Bindings hold, and the Ravens don’t attack.

The sun sets.

Nothing happens.


	6. Chapter 6

* * *

VI.

* * *

On the ninth of May, Neil comes back from a mid-morning breakfast down in Matt’s (and Dan’s, now. Her apartment had gone up for lease within an hour of her saying yes.) apartment to find Andrew glaring daggers at the television – it’s the first time he’s emerged from the room at the center of the apartment since that night before Beltane, a week and change ago. Neil throws the remote in his general direction and pretends not to notice both the sudden reemergence and the fact that he’s almost positive Andrew’s shirt was one previously in Neil’s closet. “You have to turn it on,” he says instead; he knows that drawing attention to the end of Andrew’s self-imposed exile is only likely to restart it. “Otherwise it’s pretty boring.”

“I _know that_ ,” Andrew hisses, but makes no move toward the remote. “I just...” The hateful glare that turns on Neil is less frightening than it probably should be, given the unusual circumstances of who he is and how they came to be here ( _I will not harm you_ ). “Technology and I don’t exactly-” Small sparks of lightning shoot across his skin, overlapping arcs that mirror the scars on his forearms; Neil politely pretends not to notice those, either. He wouldn’t ask questions of anything he isn’t willing to answer for himself. “Get along.”

Of course – Kevin has the same problem on cold days, where he feels the burning tingle in his extremities of skin re-warmed too quickly. It’s something Neil has never had to worry about, or even consider. “I guess it’s true what they say,” he clicks the television’s power button instead of addressing Andrew directly; behind him, he hears the clatter of the remote being shoved off the cushions to the tiles of the floor. “About twins, I mean.”

“What about them?” His voice is casually disinterested in a way that reads as having been practiced; his eyes are sharp and assessing.

Neil has never actually met a pair of twins before (He doesn’t think he’s entirely met one now. From the files he knows that the brothers have spent more of their lives apart than they have together, and the years they were under the same roof were tempestuous _at best_. Everything he’s heard or read points to that being abnormal.), but they’re stereotyped as either mirror images or complete opposites. “Well, Aaron’s magic is tech-based.” Complementary, not copies. “And yours is-” He gestures, rather than finishing the thought aloud. “The same but opposite.”

“Oh. Right.” The end of the conversation is signaled in the way Andrew’s gaze shutters at the invocation of the second Minyard’s name. “I have a twin. I suppose so.” The surprise does not come from the realization of their pair of powers, but instead hovers around the mention of a sibling like a moth around a flame – enthralled, but uncomprehending. He speaks as though he is being reminded of something he should know, but doesn’t. It’s been over a week but Andrew is still nothing more than a Name and a face that is slowly trying to remember how to be a man.

The Ravens took many things from Neil, but they never took away who he was; it’s an offense so grievous, so terrifying, that Neil cannot even begin to imagine it. “I’m sorry.” He won’t ask what he isn’t willing to answer for himself, but he won’t allow a victim to go without sympathy – he knows better than most how that feels, as well. “For what they did to you.”

Andrew freezes, gaze blank, and spits out a vicious curse they both know will be ineffective before stalking back to his room.

* * *

In the two weeks that follow the non-event of Beltane, the atmosphere around the Foxhole Court is tense. On edge. Kevin doesn’t sleep for nearly eight nights in a row (Neil knows this because Kevin spends seven straight nights lying motionless and awake across the foot of his bed, reacting to every single motion or noise from beneath the sheets, until the eighth night when Neil finally tosses one edge of the covers down and orders him to get some sleep.) before crashing for thirty-one hours, and even that does nothing to dull the razor thin control over the panic that he’s managed.

It’s only bad luck (Bad timing. Neil doesn’t believe in luck – rather, luck doesn’t believe in _him_.) that has Kevin dragging himself free of a restless sleep at a strange hour.

Neil is in the kitchen, silently cursing the cereal that isn’t supposed to ever go stale, when a body drops into the chair beside him; he’s got half a chance of guessing correctly which of the two it is, but he doesn’t particularly care either way. The apartment, for all its strange beginnings, feels safe enough for Neil to let down his guard here (he’s called it _home_ once, in his head, and thinks that maybe it might be true). The question he hasn’t cared to ask is answered by the hand that jerks the bowl away from him, only to return it after a single bite. “I don’t like cereal.”

“I’m glad we determined that.” Neil keeps his voice bland to match Andrew’s, but the sentiment is sincere – it’s a slow process, relearning an identity, but each step feels a bit like a milestone. Andrew does not like cereal (and carrots, and 80s music), but does chocolate (and cranberry juice, and action movies). “His Majesty is sleeping.”

Andrew turns to the pantry as though he can see through the wall to the bedroom beyond, and the sneer on his face is what passes for a smile. “I genuinely do not care,” but the lines of his body draw tight; it seems to be a sixth sense of his, the ability to know when the elevator rises above the ninth floor, because Andrew frequently disappears behind closed doors a good thirty seconds before anyone ever makes it to the front door.

The air in the kitchen goes sour, and Neil feels the hollowness of too much magic; Andrew goes taut beside him, knuckles white, as every light in the kitchen flickers warningly ( _danger, danger, danger_ ). “The feeling is mutual,” And it’s not Kevin who enters the kitchen, but the Dara – even in soft pajamas the weight of presence is unmistakable. “How the fuck did you make it past the gates, Aaron?” The lights flicker again, tiny sparks of electricity in the air, and suddenly the cloying nothingness of spells in the air lifts – the tension remains. “Neil,” and he’s never heard his name in that tone of voice before, not from Kevin. It’s cold and hard and sharp and it feels like a knife in his gut. “What the _fuck did you **do**_?”

Be fearless. “I got a dog,” he says slowly – he’s not afraid of Kevin, never could be, not for himself, but there’s a single opportunity to diffuse the violence that stalks the spaces between the three men. “Sort of.”

“You unbound him.” Kevin taps a rhythm, this one meaningless, against the counter top. They’ve spent enough years not talking to hear what the other is truly saying. “You know who he is?”

Andrew goes still, too still, like instead of no reaction he’s attempting to mask one. It’s an unfair question to ask of Neil when not even _Andrew_ is sure who he is – he is Andrew Minyard. A murderer. An ally. Everything else is a work in progress, a forgotten masterpiece. “I need for you to trust me.” It’s a low blow, but Neil figures he’s owed one after the many Kevin has aimed his way over the years. Lower still would be calling Kevin by name, any part of it, which Neil would normally do because this is who they are, Kevin and Nathaniel, and who they have always been; instead he avoids an address entirely. It’s as much a personal note as anything.

Kevin sighs, anger deflated. “I do.” It’s a simple truth, unquestionable, like Kevin knows no other way – Neil cannot imagine a world where he does not know beyond knowing that Kevin has his back, even on something like this. “It’s _him_ I don’t trust.”

“Trust _me_ ,” Neil repeats, firmer this time; it’s rare that Kevin listens when the only command Neil can muster is a stern voice, but he manages the words the same way he would manage a Name, and it’s almost the same. Beside him, Andrew impossibly tenses and relaxes all at once as he picks up on the weight of the words. “Let me trust him for you.”

For a moment it looks as though Kevin wants to argue, but Andrew beats him to it. “Really, Neil.” Deliberately turning his back to Kevin (and as he does, his gaze locks with Neil’s – sharp, not blank, but it passes in a blink), he gets two mugs of coffee prepared and drops one in front of Neil. He thinks – _thinks_ – that he might be starting to understand; he takes a sip even though Andrew put sugar in it because he knows he didn’t put poison, and he needs Kevin to know too. “You are so fucking stupid.”

There’s an angry, derisive noise that Neil recognizes to mean that Kevin knows, and hates, that he’s been beat. “I don’t want to agree with him, but-” his voice is cruel; Neil reads helplessness. He reads a small, bittersweet victory; it’s the first time in their lives that Neil has sided _against_ Kevin.

“I know.”

Kevin grabs at Neil’s wrist and presses painfully against the joint until his hand goes tingly and numb. “Stay alive,” he orders, and stalks out of the room. The gesture is an old code from their time with the Ravens, used only once, and means _whatever it takes_.

* * *

Unsurprisingly, Kevin is hardly the only member of the Fixes to be suffering a sleepless, stressful May. There’s more activity in the common areas than the apartments; Neil has breakfast with Matt three times in as many weeks – Matt looks exhausted, and on the few occasions that Neil manages to catch Dan away from work she’s equally haggard. It takes only a moment to pry the confession that they, like Kevin, have not been going home much in favor of work. When Neil takes to dropping by the Containment Division (it reaches a point where Wymack uses the phone number he was given as a last resort only to ask Neil if everyone is still alive, as none of the Foxes have been seen coming or going through the lobby in long enough that people are starting to notice) on a daily basis, he sees that even Allison is starting to show the strain.

They are running themselves into ruin on speculation alone – the Ravens did nothing at Beltane, so they must be planning something for the day after. The day after _that_ , when nothing comes. The day after. They hardly sleep, and when they do they awake in an hour’s time with the punch in the gut panic that this is it. (They walk about the Tower and the Court with the same mindless paranoia that Neil still sees in Kevin, all these years later. That he’s sure, if he ever asked, Kevin still sees in him.)

He can’t watch them suffer.

“I’m going to Columbia,” he announces amid the now thrice daily argument of potentialities; it’s Kevin that snaps his jaw into silent protest, but the others are not far behind. “Nicky said he’d keep looking, maybe they’ve got something.”

Unexpected support comes from Dan, who shares a brief glance and a shrug with Allison at her side before nodding her head at the idea. “Honestly?” She sounds, _looks_ , exhausted. Old. Like Beltane has come and gone and taken a little bit of all of them with it. “I’ll take any lead you can find at this point.” She smiles at him, gently; he is not one of the witches of the Foxhole Court, but since the turn of the wheel he is beginning to think that he still might be one of the Foxes – he cannot help them with the Ravens, with the Bindings, but he can help them with this.

A scoff – the lack of support from Seth comes more expectedly. “I still don’t know why we trust whatever information they give us.” Neil would fight back on principle, if not for the fact that Seth looked among the worst of them; Dan had mentioned that he’d been modifying the coastal Bindings without help since Neil had first come to them with a hellhound’s concerns. “People lie.”

_Humans_ lie. He doesn’t say it, not with Kevin in the room, but the implication is obvious. Fae cannot, but Nicky – and _Neil_ – can.

“We trust Nicky,” and if Dan’s support had been a surprise, Allison’s now is doubly so; Allison has never been cruel to Neil, but she is openly so to Kevin. If he were to hazard a guess as to which of the Foxes would agree with Kevin’s choice of informants, Allison would never have made the list. “Because _I_ trust Nicky.” It raises a hundred more questions than it answers, at least with Neil; Seth accepts this explanation with a shrug, and moves on.

Dan ignores the momentary argument. “Be safe, Neil,” and if she treated him like a younger brother before, she treats him like her child now – or, how he imagines mothers that are not his treat their children. “Don’t go alone.”

A clatter of a chair and Matt is standing. “I’ll go with you.” It’s a strange offer; in the past Matt has offered to go in his place, has insisted on it, and after picking him up in Columbia two weeks before had been adamant that Neil not go back. He supposes that it could be for protection – of the Foxes, Matt is the only one with equal training in both magic and physical fighting. The problem is that while Matt knows about the hellhound-turned-man, he doesn’t – _can’t_ – know about Andrew.

He shoots a pleading glance at Kevin, unfair of him to ask after their morning but asking anyway. “No, I’ll-” A mistake – Kevin can’t leave, not now. Not with the potential for a Raven attack at any time; if not for the fact that his is the position most needed, there’s always the fact that his is the person most wanted by Riko and his men. His voice curdles. “Take the monster.” It is a hateful, but grudging, acknowledgement.

Kevin squeezes his wrist before Neil walks out the door.

* * *

This time, soft florescent lights cast a slightly haunted glow over the interior of the club – Neil would call it half-lit, some cross between light and dark, but just enough to see by. Just enough for Aaron to recognize who enters before the door has even had a chance to close. “We’re closed,” he snarls; Neil pauses, thrown by the familiar tone from the unfamiliar twin. “Get the fuck out.”

Neil shrugs. “Okay,” but before he can turn around there’s a hand at the small of his back, shoving him further inward.

“Move,” Andrew’s tone is accidentally near to identical as his brother’s had been, distinguishable only through the undercurrents of a growl that seems to have carried over from his previous form. He blinks, as if his eyes are unsure whether or not to adjust, but when he glances around it’s with the interest of unfamiliarity – wherever he spent the last thirty-odd years of his life, it wasn’t here. “Where’s Nicky?”

The only response is a low, strangled sound from Aaron; it might have been a word once, possibly a name, but it comes out with a wounded, animalistic cry. In his lifetime, Neil has heard a number of men die, heard the croaking noise of loss they make as their final breath leaves their body – Aaron sounds like that now. “Andrew?” This time it _is_ a name, but halfway through it chokes off into a sob; he hasn’t managed to move yet, but Aaron’s hands open and close like he’s reaching for something. Some _one_. At Neil’s side, Andrew’s hands clench into fists.

“Where’s Nicky?” he repeats, voice blank and face expressionless – like with Kevin, the lack of response seems too much so to be genuine, a forced opposite to cover feeling too greatly.

Aaron takes a deep, gulping breath that does nothing to steady his voice; it still sounds like he’s drowning. “We thought you were _gone_ ,” and it feels like a mistake now, bringing Andrew. He’s not yet enough of an entire person to be asked to endure this, and Neil sincerely doubts that Aaron will recover soon enough to give them the information they need. “All these yea-”

“I won’t ask again.”

Neil stands with brewing violence at his back and choking grief ahead, and the air is thick with it; rather than the nothingness of magic it’s a palpable of _too much_ that gives even him a headache. He can’t imagine how it must feel for someone whose powers lie in empathy, someone like – As if summoned, Nicky appears through a door set behind a mirror at the back of the bar. “Aaron?” he calls, wary. “Everything okay?”

“Everything’s fine,” Andrew’s tone says anything but, and it’s a matter of seconds before Nicky is across the room to them.

He slows when he reaches Aaron, stops outright when he sees Andrew. Like his cousin, there’s a flash of time where hands move to reach for something that isn’t there anymore, where lips move around a name that has been avoided – unlike his cousin, Nicky manages something closer to recovery much faster. “Andrew,” and though he sounds calm his eyes are wet and his throat twitches to swallow down whatever emotions are boiling over. “Neil. What can I-” Another sharp inhalation from Aaron has Nicky pausing to gather himself. “What can I get for you guys?”

“Last time we were here,” and Neil is almost impressed at the ease with which Andrew shatters the tenuous calm; he speaks matter of fact, but Aaron and Nicky visibly catch over the words ‘last time’ and ‘we.’ The grief in Aaron’s face warms slowly into anger, the low-burning kind that burns far longer, where Nicky crumples. “We were followed back by a group of Ravens. What are they planning?”

“I don’t know.” He shakes his head, voice a whisper; everything is disbelief.

Lightning arcs across his now covered forearms, and Neil takes a step closer to Andrew rather than away – the storm calms, but barely. “What are they planning?” he repeats, voice cold.

“I don’t know!” Nicky’s voice breaks along with his control, and releases whatever he had been holding at bay; Neil almost vomits when close to forty years of grief and betrayal and loss and rage disperse through the room like a poison. Only the twins hold their ground, faces warring to remain the least affected; both have fury clenched white-knuckled in their fists. “Andrew, I don’t _know_!”

Andrew’s reply is quiet, but as far from gentle as broken glass. “But you know who might. Call him, Nicky.” His cousin goes pale, almost as pale as the twins, at the mention of this mysterious _him_ , and Neil feels completely out of his depth; he’s chosen for now, for whatever it’s worth, to trust Andrew. He does not know if he’s chosen wisely. “We’ll be in touch.”

The lights directly overhead short out into momentary darkness, then flash back on with twice their strength; the rest of the room seems to grow darker, more distant, accusatory. “That’s it then?” Aaron sounds like he teeters at the edge of cliff with nothing beneath him and a fight to survive on every side. _Danger_ , the warning flashes as a prickle across the back of Neil’s neck. _Danger_. It’s only the way that Aaron hasn’t moved, nothing but his arms and his mouth, since they entered that keeps Neil from tugging Andrew for the door. “You’re just going to leave with the Dara’s pet human?” For once, the insult doesn’t strike against Neil’s skin – maybe because, for once, the barb isn’t aimed at him. “I think you owe us an explanation, after everything you put us through-”

**_Danger_** , Neil’s instincts scream as he reaches out and drags Andrew’s arm down, away, putting himself between the twins in a single motion. Whatever spell had been forming, wrought from anger, pops into nothing against Neil’s chest; in his grip, Andrew’s wrist goes taut as if to pull away. In contrast, his hand twists a momentary grip into the fabric of his shirt. “Don’t,” he whispers, the same futile sternness that mostly doesn’t keep Kevin in check.

Eyes blazing, Andrew throws himself backwards – his glare skips over Neil to train entirely on his twin. “Everything I put _you_ through?” Everything about him is jagged and rough, from his voice to his eyes to his grip at Neil’s shirt, like something that’s been dropped and broken and hastily reassembled – in some ways, it’s true. “Go on, Aaron,” and the brother in question wilts, anger draining. “Tell me all about what _you_ have been through.” There’s no question that whatever it is, Andrew’s pain is worse. Aaron wears sadness and betrayal like a coat, something that can be taken on and off when it becomes too much, but Andrew wears those thirty-seven years carved into his skin. “Tell me all about how I _owe you_.”

Neil grabs his wrist again, lightly this time. “Let’s go,” he murmurs again, voice low and steady; be fearless, he’s learned, and he speaks like they’re back in the apartment and not mere seconds from a duel.

It works.

Andrew pulls his attention away from his brother and his grip away from Neil, and without a further word or a glance back he makes a beeline for the exit. Neil ignores the tightness in his shoulders, the clench in his fists, the palpable weight in the air of both twins. He thinks, if he reached out, he could grasp the heavy tension in his fist. Instead he passes his hand along the heavy glasses that line the bar, chilled to a perfect temperature and _waiting_. The tips of his fingers catch on the lip on the final glass – he doesn’t exactly help it leap to the freedom of the floor, but he doesn’t exactly do anything to stop the descent either.

The soft tinkling of glass shattering against concrete is drowned out by the nearly audible sound of Andrew’s neck snapping around to find the source of the noise. When his sharp gaze finds Neil’s, there’s something undefinable – something gold and brown and green – burning behind the anger. Something harder, and softer, entirely.

Neil grins at him, unrepentant. “Oops.”

“I hate you,” Andrew whispers into the air between them, voice rough like the hellhound’s snarl; what it lacks in volume it more than makes up for in venom, and Neil falters a single step – Fae cannot lie. Another blink, and Andrew must realize what he’s said, how it sounded, because all expression smooths entirely away from his face. Suddenly blank, like stone, like _before_ , he turns his back and he leaves.

* * *

When they finally get back to the apartment, Neil fully expects for Andrew to disappear again – he does, but not into his room. Instead he beats a destructive path back through the kitchen, lightbulbs crackling on and off in his wake, to the yet-unused balcony at the rear of the building. The doors slam shut behind him, and Neil leaves him to any peace he might find. Hours pass, and Andrew does not reappear; when the last of the sun has burned out of the sky, Neil quietly opens the doors from the kitchen and takes his first steps outside.

From ten stories up, they’ve got a view of most of the city – and the mountains to one side, _and_ the lake to the other. He thinks he can see more of the city than he’s seen in his entire life, just from this spot, as well as the countless multitude of stars overhead. Andrew is a flash of blond and the burn of a cigarette right in the corner seated on the waist-high wall with his legs dangling over the edge and his face turned up to the heavens. He doesn’t move when Neil steps on to the balcony, but he speaks an acknowledgement. “I don’t want to talk.”

Neil didn’t come out here to talk about it – he doesn’t entirely know why he came out here. In some ways he thinks it’s because the apartment was too quiet without the other body he’s grown used to occupying space, or because a ten-story fall might not kill someone like Andrew, but it would shatter the already delicate pieces of him. “About Columbia,” and he sits beside Andrew without invitation; Andrew shifts to allow him more space. “Or at all?”

A trail of smoke curls circles into the darkness above their heads. “What do you want, Neil.” It’s not a question, but a challenge.

“An answer.”

The light of the cigarette illuminates the way that Andrew’s face tightens, then opens into a cruel smile; the shadows make him look more like a skull than a living thing. “It won’t be for free,” he warns.

“How does Allison know Nicky?” Neil has a thousand questions burning holes on the back of his tongue, suspicion and curiosity roiling in his gut, but anything else borders too closely to the line of _taking_. He knows that Andrew will answer whatever he asks, but Neil cannot accept anything not freely given – this is something safer.

Another puff of smoke escapes in a breath of incredulity. “They grew up together,” Andrew finally tells him, like he doesn’t believe this is the thing Neil would actually ask, but his voice is light. It’s nothing Neil would have suspected. He knows, vaguely, of Allison’s past – that she joined the Containment Division against her parents’ wishes, and possibly to escape a marriage. He knows that her parents are among the High Fae. But none of those points draw lines of connection to a Winter Kingdom club owner, or any form of a shared childhood. “He married one of her cousins.”

A second surprise – both that Allison has family beyond the parents who deny her, and that Nicky is married. “Really?” None of this makes sense. It’s too many intersections between the two kingdoms when the entirety of his life has been bound by the literal wall between them.

Andrew shrugs. “Nicky grew up on this side of the Gates, the son of a councilman.” It’s only the recent exposure to it that has Neil able to hear the frostiness that creeps up his tone at the mention of Nicky’s parents. “They’re apparently _good people_ ,” and the frost turns to ice, cold and hateful, “despite the black marks on the family tree.”

Neil assumes that refers to him.

“My mother,” the third surprise of the night is the way Andrew offers the information willingly, and Neil grits his teeth at the credit he’s accruing; he owes Andrew far more than a single truth by now, and has precious few to give. “She crossed the Gates and got herself knocked up by the first dark Fae she could find.”

“My mother sold me to the Ravens to save her own life.” Andrew’s mouth closes so quickly at his words that Neil can hear the clack of teeth, painfully loud against the quiet. He doesn’t reply, but tilts his head in both acknowledgement and entreaty to continue; it’s the same gesture as when he’d worn a different form, something at once familiar and utterly foreign when enacted on human shoulders. Neil swallows the lumps of long-buried anger in his throat. “I mean, I don’t remember it. I was two.” At that, Andrew _does_ wince. “But I was sold, and then eight years later I come back and find out that she’s here,” Neil gestures wide, past the balcony to the sweeping view and the city beyond, “in our house. What else am I supposed to think? They never would have left her alive if she wasn’t involved.”

He reaches across to close shaking fingers around the cigarette in Andrew’s left hand; startled, Andrew releases it. Neil ignores the way that golden eyes trace the stream of smoke back and up to his lips. “And they just _sent me back_ to her – Wymack. The Council. The High Fae. They sent me right back to live under her roof like nothing happened.” Neil stabs the cigarette out viciously against the cement; wordless, Andrew passes him another, already lit. There’s no pity in his eyes, but a quiet understanding.

The next few hours pass in a silence that could almost be labelled comfortable.


	7. Chapter 7

* * *

VII.

* * *

“Tell me how you ended up with the Foxes.”

It’s been nearly a week since the night on the balcony, since Columbia, and Andrew waits for an evening when they’re both at the apartment; he doesn’t ask. He doesn’t order, either. Andrew’s words tiptoe the line between a request and a command, gentle enough that Neil has the ability to say no but firm enough that he won’t – it’s his turn, after all. Answers for answers ( _It won’t be for free_ ). Panic of two kinds roils in his gut as he grasps the many strings of lies for a suitable answer – he’s never told his story before. Half of it isn’t his story to tell. “The Dara-”

“I didn’t ask about the Dara.” They’re on the balcony again, where they find themselves more often than not, and Andrew offers a cigarette to relieve the sting of his words. “I asked about you.”

Neil doesn’t smoke; he just likes the smell, the warmth. He likes the way smoke curls up from his fingers like it used to. Like magic. “He’s part of it,” but it’s a relief, the permission to excise Kevin from the story – he wouldn’t want to tell Kevin’s half of it any more than he would want Kevin to tell his. “My father works for the Moriyamas. When I was two years old, he gave me to Riko Moriyama as a token of his loyalty. I was a servant in Evermore until I was ten, when the Dara and I escaped to South Carolina.” It’s the skeleton of an explanation, the bare bones without any of the substance; it’s enough.

Andrew tilts his head, considering; his eyes drift from Neil’s to examine city below them. “Your father,” and there’s a prickle of warning when Andrew shifts an inch further from him. “Is he the one who likes knives?”

It was a mixture of the quiet, _safe_ feeling of the apartment and the previously unaddressed similarities that had Neil comfortable enough to wear short sleeves when they were at home; now he feels exposed. On display. The worst of the scarring is on his torso, a mixture of curving lines and jagged words carved across his stomach, but there are three that peek beneath the edges of short sleeves – one at his neck, curling around his collarbones, and thick tracks that look like claw marks at his biceps. He feels his lips curve into the echo of his father’s smile. “Looks like you’ve met him, too.”

Instead of rising to the bait, Andrew barks a laugh. “The most unbelievable part of your tale is that you made it eight years without anyone cutting out your tongue.”

The cruelness of the Butcher’s grin falls away into something more fragile, something _Neil_. He still startles when he exits the elevator to meet Riko’s gaze, but it’s impossible for the Ravens to haunt him here when Andrew treats them as something entirely insignificant; he’d scoffed once and hadn’t even glanced at the mural since. “Yeah, well,” and he curls himself further around the orange glow and wispy smoke of his cigarette. “I learned a few things.”

“Not to keep your mouth shut, apparently,” but Andrew turns his head back to the view like he’s accepted the story regardless.

There’s a hint of warning in the tone, which Neil promptly disregards – he’s never been one to follow warnings, even from those he _is_ afraid of. “So,” and he leans forward, just to watch Andrew’s hands clench against the edge of the balcony in white-knuckled terror, and he files the information away in the same part of his brain where he hides Kevin’s weaknesses away. Heights, with Andrew. The dark, for Kevin. The crutch of power is the fear of powerlessness, in all its forms. Neil has nothing to lose ( _be fearless_ ). “That was technically two questions.” His grin sharpens. “You owe me one.”

The only response is a baleful glare. “Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t push you over the edge.”

A ten-story fall might not kill someone like Andrew, but Neil is human. Despite this, the threat falls flat between them; Neil has faced more threats against his life than he has years of living, and he does nothing more than put his cigarette out against the concrete and lean over to nudge their shoulders together. “I’d drag you down with me.”

Andrew considers and then, obviously calling the bluff, shrugs. “I said a _good_ reason. Now go away.” Any offence intended is lost when Neil’s phone _pings_ (the angry wasp-like noise had been replaced soon after the number of people who knew his phone number, and with it the number of people who _used it_ , more than doubled) with a text from Matt, summoning him to the Foxhole Court.

* * *

It becomes obvious, from the way the Foxes are seated on two distinct sides of the table, that Neil has been called in to settle some sort of vote; he’s not sure what to name the feeling that roils in his gut at the thought that he is somehow, improbably, an equal part of this. Usually, his chair is the one beside Kevin’s, removed from the others in the way that he and Kevin keep themselves separate. This time, he’s barely entered the room before Allison is gesturing him into the seat to her right, in between her and Matt. “Neil,” she grabs his wrist to hurry him into sitting, “please tell them that they’re being ridiculous.”

_Them_ is, apparently, Seth and Dan; Dan looks thoughtful, almost considering, but Seth looks – he looks _hateful_ , glaring daggers at Neil and Allison and Kevin alike. “I don’t-” Seth’s glare hardens when Neil speaks, and he’s sure it’s nothing more than the knowledge that it would have no effect that keeps Seth from cursing him. “I don’t think Dan is ever ridiculous.”

She smiles at him, fondly. “We’ve been talking.” Suddenly there’s a tingle in the air, and not from magic – it’s the prickle at the back of his neck, the one that tells him _danger_. The one that kept him alive with the Ravens. It’s the same feeling in the air that taught him to judge the distance to the door and the approximate reach of anyone in the room with him. “About Beltane.”

Nothing happened at Beltane. He supposes that was probably the discussion.

He knows, in some indirect manner, that the almost month of sleeplessness and stress is his fault; it might have been Andrew to introduce the idea of a Raven attack, but it was Neil who vouched for him. If not for his support (and the way that the Foxes insisted on trusting him) the theory would have been dismissed as soon as the day had passed – after all, the only basis was a hellhound’s words and Neil’s experiences since; nothing tangible. “ _Some of us_ ,” and Allison’s voice is further pointed when she glances coolly at Seth; they’ve been on and off as long as Neil has known them, and are clearly in another of their offs. “Are convinced that we should forget about the Ravens.”

There’s fire, both literal and figurative, in Dan’s glare. “All I said,” like Allison and Seth, Matt and Dan are seated at opposite ends of the argument. Unlike the other couple, they’ve never been off, and it worries Neil to see them at odds even over this single issue. “Was that maybe there’s no threat _right now_.” She turns for help from Renee and Kevin, leaning against the far wall, but Kevin ignores her. If Renee speaks, Neil can’t hear it. “We’ve searched every avenue available to us – we sent Neil into the Winter Kingdom _twice_ , and nobody has heard anything.” Dan is angry; he has seen Dan be firm with the Foxes, but never lose her temper like this. For probably the first time in his life, Neil wonders where Wymack is. “Maybe there’s nothing to hear.”

“Oh what, and Sleeping Beauty over there just slept an entire day away for no reason?” Neil has always liked Allison – she’s not soft like the others, but similar rough edges like himself – but he’s still unused to her having his back so unquestionably. Rather, he’s still unused to her having Kevin’s back at all; the mutual dislike between them is a palpable weight in the air, a clash of static and steam over their conversations that can be seen and heard and felt.

Seth coughs in a way that means he has considered a response, and resentfully swallowed it. “The Dara is obsessive.” It is perhaps the least offensive opinion he’s ever expressed in regards to Kevin, and entirely accurate. “And he is only human. How long had he gone without sleeping?” Kevin averts his gaze to Neil’s, answering the question with an unspoken glance – too long, but he’s gone longer. Neil understands; he’s seen Kevin delirious and near feverish from lack of sleep, but even as a child he’s never collapsed.

Neil snarls in answer. “Not _that_ long.”

“The Dara falls unconscious and cannot be woken. I’ll admit, that’s suspicious.” Despite agreeing with him, Seth sounds anything but agreeable. For years now it’s been a delicate almost war between them, and with tensions as they are it feels like the simmer is finally coming to a boil. “But he wakes up _completely unharmed_ the following evening? If this _had_ been some Raven plot, what did they hope to accomplish?” Neil has absolutely no answer to that, though he’s been searching for weeks.

Allison touches his arm to silence him, though he has no intention of speaking; it’s a soft pressure at his forearm, so different from the usual pinprick of her nails. “Having the Dara out of commission that close to Beltane-”

“Days before,” Seth looks at Allison and Neil is sure that whatever has been between them before is over. “He woke up **_days_** before. The only reason this was anything worth notice was because _some of us_ ,” and now he turns the same glare on Neil, on Kevin, on Matt, drawing clear lines of them and us and the jagged chasm between those groupings. “Brought up theories with absolutely no proof.”

_No proof_ – sometimes he wishes that Seth were at least open about his hatred of humans (of _Neil_ ), because then he could point their mutual dislike to some tangible cause. Instead they both tiptoe around the issue, dodging a verbal minefield the other lays. “Well,” and it doesn’t matter that Seth will never believe him, because the other Foxes will, “if there _was_ nothing to be found, why would the Ravens have attacked me in Columbia?”  

“You never told me about that.” Dan’s voice is not accusatory, despite the hint of an accusation; instead she sounds almost disappointed (and that’s a tone Neil knows well, especially among the people he calls _family_ ). It’s strange, the guilt he feels – he hadn’t _not_ told her, not intentionally, he’d just assumed that Matt had. A sideways glance catches Matt’s pained half-smile and the thumbs up he offers under the table, which Neil returns with a sharp shooing motion.

The movement mixes with a shrug, turning into a half-formed gesture that has him leaning in his chair, away from the Foxes. “It’s not a big deal.” He can’t tell them that violence at the hands of the Ravens is something almost more familiar to him than this, than people who _care_. He can’t watch them suffer anymore. “Obviously I survived,” and he gestures to the relatively unmarked visible surface of his body – the Foxes are used to the scars that peek out from beneath his clothes, though only Kevin has seen the ones that lie beneath. “Unharmed, even.”

In place of concern for his person, Allison grins, triumphant; Neil has always liked Allison – they’re cut from the same cloth. “Maybe there’s nothing to hear,” she parrots, lips as red as blood, and dares Seth to say a single word against it with the sharpness in her gaze. He ignores the challenge.

Dan glances at Matt and exchanges a wordless conversation that eases at least half of the tension from Neil’s body; if Kevin is the greatest constant in his life, Matt and Dan are the other, and seeing them separated even by a discussion left him feeling faintly nauseous. The next glance is at Allison, who drops the venom from her smile when she aims it at Dan – bit by bit, Neil watches the Foxes stitch themselves back together. “Well that’s settled,” and again, he doesn’t realize the voice belongs to Renee until she steps forward.

Seth disagrees. “I still don’t think-”

It’s impossible to argue in the presence of Renee’s beatific smile; Neil does not fully trust Renee. He trusts her as much as he does any of the Foxes (both with his life, and not at all), but sometimes he catches her looking at him and wonders just how much she _sees_. She holds herself removed from every debate, like she did today, and refuses to cast a vote – she acts as if she already knows the outcome. “Midsummer is just about two weeks away,” she reminds them, voice serene, and refuses to make eye contact with anyone in particular. “Why don’t we wait.”

_For what_ , Neil wants to ask, but is almost afraid of the answer – some of her people, Neil has learned, are psychics.

As if she heard him, Renee meets his gaze full on. “To see what happens.”

* * *

That evening, Neil passes Andrew a cigarette only to have him freeze as he reaches for it. “Incoming,” he warns the air at large, and his hand twitches once before he seems to come to a decision; slowly, deliberately, he reaches out and takes the cigarette. Instead of going for the lighter in his pocket, he holds it over one shoulder expectantly. The cigarette lights in a tiny burst of flame.

Kevin leans against the concrete wall on Neil’s other side, elbows propped onto the railing, and watches the skyline. “I guess that was you,” and there’s a resignation to the quietness of his voice, a defeat in the forced gentleness. Kevin has been nothing but jagged, broken edges since they crossed the Bindings, surviving the only way he ever knew how (at the edge of the knife, but after the Ravens he’d sworn that he’d never again be used as a weapon. Instead he honed a sharp tongue and a sharp personality to keep the world at a distance). “When the Ravens attacked.”

Andrew shrugs.

“The cameras,” he continues, haltingly. It’s moments like these where the difference between the magician and the man is glaringly obvious – the Dara is everything Kevin is not: confident, composed.

As with their first meeting, Andrew’s distinct lack of a reaction is forced, a defense against whatever action he might otherwise take. This time however, instead of his usual blankness there’s a certain almost cruel hook at the corner of his mouth, curled up around a cigarette, that Neil would call a smile on anyone else. He ignores Kevin like it’s a game.

There’s a sigh and Kevin breaks the stalemate by offering his hand – the left, Neil is shocked to notice; paler than the other and matching star-shaped scars on the back and the palm, and barely-there lines that crisscross the entire surface like a broken mirror. “Thank you, Andrew.” Some of the most ancient and powerful magics of their world lie in Names, and in thanks, and in revealing the parts of yourself that you most want protected; in a single sentence, Kevin offers all three.

“Don’t mention it,” Andrew mutters around his cigarette; he has yet to turn his head to acknowledge Kevin, beyond these few words now and the original greeting, but his hand tightens around the railing like he’s trying to keep it from moving. “Really. _Don’t_.”

When the hand retracts, there’s a barely-there tremor to it, an echo of the lingering weakness; Kevin is always cruelest when he is feeling inadequate. “Saving Neil,” and his hand might shake but his voice is level, “it doesn’t forgive what you did.”

The only thing that keeps Neil from reaching an arm out to either of them is the way the light on the balcony doesn’t react – at least for now, Andrew is in control. He’ll forgive the sudden shift of his speech toward violence as long as that’s the only thing that changes. “And what, exactly, did I do?” _Danger_ , the tone of voice says in sharp unison with the prick of instinct at the back of Neil’s skull. _Danger_.

Something moves too far into Neil’s personal space, almost pressing against his spine; he recognizes the presence as Kevin without having to try, as familiar as they are with the other, but can’t bring himself to relax. Every muscle in Kevin’s body is pulled taut, ready for a fight. “You’re a murderer.”

Andrew takes a long, leisurely drag of his cigarette before flicking it, still lit, over the side of the building, where it twinkles like a miniature star before falling. Then he finally, _finally_ , turns his attention to Kevin – instead of anger, his face is schooled into complete apathy, eyes fixed at a point somewhere beyond Kevin’s shoulder. His voice has been smoothed down to match. “That _is_ the story I’ve heard, yes.”

“Forty,” and Neil feels the words like the crack of a whip, but Andrew doesn’t react. “You killed _forty_ members of the Guard.”

There’s a moment where Neil catches Andrew staring at him like he’s gauging Neil’s reaction to the words, but instead he only moves a hand slowly across the small space between them and plucks away the half-done cigarette. “Calm down,” and like Neil he cradles the glow in his palm, allowing the smoke to wrap around his fingers before disappearing into the nighttime sky. Neil watches the swirls, transfixed. “It was only thirty-nine.”

In the blink of an eye the cigarette has gone from ember to inferno, and Neil all but slams an elbow backwards into Kevin’s stomach – not hard, not enough to hurt, but it gets his attention long enough for Neil to take a few deep breaths. In and out. ( _With me_ , he orders, demonstrating, and slowly Kevin’s hyperventilated breathing calms. He is eleven and Neil is eight and the new moon has plunged their tiny room into darkness so thick that Kevin can’t find the air to conjure even a spark. _In and out,_ and he does it again, again, until Kevin relaxes, uncurling from his tight ball of panic.) In and out. Behind him, the tense draw of Kevin’s muscles refuses to loosen. “You should have been locked up. The Foxes-”

“Offered me a job.” In the brittle silence that follows, Neil again finds golden eyes turned unerringly in his direction. Andrew meets his gaze and shrugs one shoulder, voice dropping. “I told them no.”

The next indrawn breath is a hiss in the quiet, ragged and angry; the air smells like smoke and feels sharp like lightning. “You’re lying,” Kevin manages between his teeth, and Neil wants to remind him ( _Fae cannot lie_ ), but Andrew beats him to it.

“You know that I can’t.”

Kevin’s left hand trembles as his right tap-tap-taps a symphony into the wall of the balcony, off-tempo and inaccurate; he breathes again, ragged and angry, and there’s a look in his eye that Neil hasn’t seen since before, since the Ravens. When he speaks again, the fight in his voice has died out to a whisper. “They would never-”

“Would never offer a powerful mage a job despite a questionable past?” Andrew’s gaze finally turns away from Neil’s to land with pointed emphasis on Kevin, at the scars on his hand and the tattoo on his cheek. His face goes impassive and bland. “No, of course not.”

He’d never admit it aloud – because Kevin’s secrets are Neil’s secrets and he’ll take them to his grave – but it’s a fair analogy; though most indirectly and all under duress, the number of lives Kevin has been responsible for ending far exceeds forty. Before he was a man he was merely a weapon, and the Foxes still find him capable of their trust. The difference, as far as he can find it, is that Kevin _regrets_. “They would never offer _you_ a job,” Kevin hisses, “not after-” His left hand clenches when the shaking becomes too noticeable, hiding weakness behind the ball of a fist. “The Foxes neutralize threats. They don’t work with them.”

For the first time in the conversation, there’s a flash of _something_ across Andrew’s face – a curl of disgust at the corner of his mouth, a dip of anger in the furrow of his brow. Tiny, barely-there gestures and all too quickly smoothed away, but Neil latches on to their flash of presence because he’s learned how rare they are. “Oh, and _Nicky_ is a threat?”

Whatever meaning is carried in Nicky’s name leaves Kevin sounding at least mildly cowed. “Well...”

Andrew shoves away from the railing, bringing himself as close as he can to growl in Kevin’s face, “Nicky is a low-level empath married to a member of the royal family. If _he’s_ a threat, then what does that make someone like you?” When Kevin is the first to break the stare, dropping his eyes to his white-knuckled grip, Andrew turns another glance in Neil’s direction – Angry. Appraising. Another of those unidentifiable moments of gold and brown and green. – and his lips draw into a gross parody of the hellhound’s snarl. “Someone like _Neil_?”

All the lights in the apartment shatter, and it’s only a lifetime of reflex that has Neil reaching out in time to stop Kevin. It’s nothing more than a hand at his arm, but it’s enough; Kevin freezes, eyes dark and furious, and the slow rumble of the earth beneath them quiets. Andrew’s sneer looks almost victorious. “Enough,” Neil orders against the heavy, nothingness void of magic that weighs in the air. “Both of you.”

“ _If he speaks again_ ,” Kevin murmurs, low and easy, and it’s a moment of time for Neil to realize he’s speaking in French – it’s been years since Neil has used German, but it’s been a lifetime since they’ve used French. French was the quiet whispers in the Winter Kingdom that kept them sane. French was Jean. “ _I’ll kill him._ ”

Kevin is not Fae, but he’s not Human either – he’s Magic, through and through, woven all the way down to his bones. He cannot lie simply because the world would rearrange itself in order to make any words from him a truth. He speaks in promises. “ _No you won’t_. _You aren’t_ **_them_** ,” and the language is rusty on his tongue, but the reminder is not. Andrew’s gaze had narrowed with suspicion when Kevin spoke, and now further when Neil does; he stares, urging Andrew to trust him with his eyes, and must succeed. With a shrug, Andrew retreats to the apartment. “ _And neither is he_.”

* * *

Less than five minutes elapses between the time Kevin leaves in the morning and the time Andrew emerges from his room; if there is a magic in knowing the comings and goings of one’s space, then Andrew is a master.

“There’s coffee,” Neil greets him with, because in addition to the steadily growing credit of truths, there’s a steadily growing credit of things they politely ignore – last night included. A disinterested grunt is the only response. “ _Just_ coffee,” he clarifies, “unless we go to the store.”

There’s a faint sizzling noise from the kitchen, probably the coffeemaker (they’ve already lost the toaster to a power surge), before Andrew appears before him with a scowl. “Yours is a miserable existence.” The statement is as much an insult as it is a complaint, but neither sticks; Andrew is already pulling on the sweatshirt that has become his and moving for the door.

Neil throws a familiar grimace toward the wall-sized portrait of the Raven Court, refusing to look away when his eyes catch Riko’s – they are black and empty, unsettlingly lifelike, and even in the depicted defeat there’s a cruel sneer in the set of his mouth. A line to his shoulders like he holds himself as something bigger, something stronger. The painter has managed to create a stunningly accurate depiction of the fallen so-called king, couched in bloody propaganda. Neil _hates_ this painting. “I hate this painting,” and he calls Andrew’s attention to it with a light touch of his elbow to the shorter man’s ribs.

Andrew glances over, considering, and shrugs. “I’ve never bothered to form an opinion on it.” He turns to the elevator without a second glance, and despite his feelings toward the Ravens (he has expressed a series likes and dislikes over the weeks, and hatred on a single thing – Neil. When he speaks of the Ravens, it is with violence and sparks that he doesn’t try to hide, and a cruelness that matches the man he refers to.) he dismisses the painting entirely. It doesn’t make sense.

“Really?” Neil reaches out to swat his hand away from the elevator controls, ignoring Andrew’s almost growl at the gesture, and turns back to the wall. “That’s all you have to say?”

Andrew looks _livid_ , and slams his hand to call the elevator with unnecessary force. “They’re fucking flowers, Neil. What do you want me to say?”

Riko’s presence in the portrait is sharp and clear as ice, but the rest of it – the background, the fallen army, the victorious Summer Kingdom – is lumped in with minimal detail. As lifelike as Riko is, the others are equally simple; brushstrokes, hints of color, and as soon as he looks away he’s forgotten them. They have a sort of liquid quality, like the shimmer of a summer lake. Like a syrup. Sometimes, he thinks, there are things that were never meant to be seen.

Neil can see through glamors.

“Andrew,” and the black mood vanishes at whatever tone finds itself into his voice; Andrew is by his side before the second syllable of his name is out, skin sparking. “Who lived in the apartment before I did?”

Another incredulous stare – from his view, the question does not match the urgency. “He was an artist.” Neil takes his words and he adds them to the bits and pieces of an explanation he was beginning to form, seemingly unrelated events that can be linked together into a complex and terrifying picture. A hidden painting outside an apartment with a hidden door. A portrait of a man hated even by his own kind rendered with the detail that speaks of familiarity. A powerful mage bound into a mindless beast and left for the next tenant to find. A name on the lease that is not his own. Andrew speaks again, and the blood that pounds with frantic urgency in Neil’s veins freezes to ice. “His name was Tetsuji.”


	8. Chapter 8

* * *

VIII.

* * *

The wards around Kevin’s second-floor apartment begin screaming before the elevator has even come to a stop, a cold void of nothing in the air and a familiar cry at the back of his mind – _danger, danger, danger_. Neil is never sure if they allow him to enter out of recognition or if they just simply break around him the way most other magic does, but they settle when he crosses the floor to the front door; Andrew remains in the elevator, face drawn tight. “Don’t mind me,” he answers Neil’s brief, questioning glance with a grimace of pain. “I’ll just wait here.”

It only takes a brush of his hand for the door to open. Unlike the rest of the world, the majority of Kevin’s spells recognize Neil and treat him accordingly – in this case, the locks disengage and he’s greeted with the sight of an outstretched hand as he beats Kevin to the door. “Neil?”

Now that he’s here, there’s too many words and not enough time; they don’t exactly have a code, but Kevin is the one who knows him best and they manage. “Get your shoes,” is all he says, and it’s rare enough for Neil to be the one bossing him around that Kevin would probably obey anything said, but this phrase is special.

( _Get your shoes_ , Kevin orders, whispering, and offers a spark of light for him to do so. Neil is ten and Kevin is thirteen and the cold walls of their tiny room have grown even colder this winter until they think their bones might shatter into fragments from it. It is one week after Neil’s birthday and another to the turn of the wheel, and Jean has been dead for twelve hours – it is their last night in Evermore. Neil put on his shoes and takes the hand Kevin offers, nodding his agreement, _and follow me_.

Thea meets them outside of the library and doesn’t spare a glance at Neil. _Kevin, are you_ -

_It doesn’t matter_ , and it obviously does, because Kevin’s voice is the same sandpaper rasp as it is after he goes off to carry out Riko’s orders, coming back with bruises on his skin and scar behind his eyes. Neil tightens his grip on Kevin’s right hand, and the skin is cold against his – Kevin’s always run hot, like despite his mastery of other magics there’s a lick of flame that bubbles uncontrollable beneath his skin, rising unbidden like his temper. Suddenly, Neil understands; Jean has been dead for twelve hours, and Kevin has been dying for at least as long.

_This would be easier if-_

A wave of his hand sends him stumbling, unsteady, but it works to cut Thea’s sentence off before it’s truly started. _Neil stays with me_ , and the conviction of his words is strong enough to pull his body upright again. He lets go of Neil only long enough to bring his good hand to Thea’s face, hovering a few inches away with a timid, trained hesitation – kindness is not a welcome presence in Evermore, nor attachment. In this moment, as in many before, Neil thinks that Kevin is very brave. _I will get you out of here_ , he promises, the words heavy in the air with magic. _I promise you-_

Thea bares her teeth in a feral grin. _Watch your words, Kevin Day_ , but she moves the last step to bring her cheek against his palm; it is the first time, and probably the last time, they have ever touched. _I am not some new element to be bent to your will. I go where I want._ Behind her, the opening to the corridor looks like an ancient gaping chasm, leading down into endless shadow. She steps away from Kevin and kneels beside it, and her skin already looks grey with exhaustion from trying to shape the tunnel. _I will get myself out,_ she promises in return, _and I will find you_.

Kevin nods once, and takes up his grip of Neil’s hand again, and they follow Thea into the tunnel. It ends two floors down, out of the residences, where the guards are fewer and farther between – Thea sags against the wall, spent. _I could have-_

_Save your strength_ , she shoves away the hands that move to her, concerned. _You’ll need it later_. From here, escape is a matter of speed and silence; this is where they leave her. Thea has already risked her life getting them those thirty vertical feet, possibly welcomed her own death. In a moment of decision, she turns to Neil – he knows what she’s asking before the words leave her mouth, knows it from the way she clenches her fists and sets her jaw and the way that she chose him over Kevin. In all his years at Evermore, Thea has never once acknowledged Neil. _He won’t be able to do it_ , she instructs, and Neil nods. She passes him one of his father’s knives, clasping his hand too long to be an accident, and stands perfectly still as he drives it into her stomach, her side, the ridge of her bicep – places that he knows all too well are survivable.

It takes them nearly eight days to reach the Bindings, with the Ravens at their heels the entire way.

The sky is the rich purple of approaching sunset, the sun itself already dipped out of sight below the wall, when the last bit of strength keeping Kevin on his feet fails him – he falls to his knees, and he does not get back up. When Neil drops to the dirt beside him, hands insistent at his elbow, he attempts to push him away. _Go_. His right hand waves limply at the swimmy, shimmering presence only yards ahead of them – the words are muffled, almost lost to the dense void of sound that Neil has felt suffocated by the closer they’ve trudged, choking on the unseen force of too much magic. _Nathaniel_ , and the Name is like a punch, heavy in his gut, that knocks the last bit of breath from him. _Go_.

_Kevin_ , he growls with a final tug at the uninjured arm – Kevin’s left hand has gone entirely white around the spike, and the spiderweb trail of poison has reached his shoulder. The only guess he has for time is not long now, both too much and not enough. _Shut the fuck up_.

The responding laugh cuts off into a hoarse, barking cough. _The Bindings won’t affect you_ , and Kevin sounds as steady as he has when he taught Neil to read. Patient. Gentle. It’s a goodbye. _I can get you over the wall_.

Neil learned not to cry by the time he was three, tears and sorrow beaten right out of him, but he feels that damning prickle at the corner of his eyes. _Drop the wards_ , Neil is ten years old but has never been a child; petulance is a foreign language for his tongue. _And you can get both of us both over it._

_Thirty hours_. Kevin pulls the spike from his hand in one final, frenzied motion and hurls the piece of iron as hard as can at the Bindings; there’s a small, sizzling flare where the two spells collide. The wound doesn’t bleed, and whatever hope Neil had for their outcome fades. _It takes the entire Containment Division working in unison for thirty hours to set those wards_.

Unrepentant, Neil shoves Kevin nearly to the ground. _You’re **Kevin Day**_. Kevin is thirteen years old and brimming with so much magic that at least half of the need for the Containment Division is his very existence – he is thirteen years old and has survived a life that could have ended grown men and every year he turns his face up to meet the first sunshine of the spring with wonder. _Beat them._

Kevin is thirteen years old, and he is dying.

_I can’t_.

_I’m not leaving you_. He digs his thumb into the skin of Kevin’s cheek, right across the bone where the Ravens wear their inked feather with perverse pride. _You and me, remember?_ There’s a brush of movement against his palm as Kevin nods, a slow agreement. _Say it_.

_You and me_ , Kevin manages, eyes closed and voice weak, but Neil feels the familiar spark of recognition under his thumb. The unlimited magic tenuously bound into a too-old boy, the unmanageable current of fire, flares to life beneath the point of pressure against Kevin’s cheek. When Neil pulls his hand away, jolted, a dark number two has been burned into the flesh.

It takes Kevin thirteen minutes to drop the wards, and they cross into the Summer Kingdom together.)

“Get your shoes,” is all he says, and waits for the flicker of fear and recognition to settle behind Kevin’s gaze. When it does it blinks away all too quickly into determination; Kevin locks the door behind him, left hand squeezing the handle just too long to be unconscious, and sets his shoulders. Neil offers a hand.

“And follow me.”

* * *

Only half of the Foxes are at the Court when they arrive – Matt had answered his phone on the second ring and promised that he would have Dan and Renee there before Neil even had a chance to ask. But Allison and Seth, still at odds, compete for the other’s attention through one-upmanship at work, pulling late nights and early mornings in a desperate bid to watch the other cave. They look up, startled, at the entrance. “Neil?” Allison’s voice is soft in a way it normally is not, almost sleepy. She blinks eyes that appear smaller when they are free of makeup, sharing a look of confusion with Seth. It’s not unheard of for Kevin to let himself in before five in the morning, but never with company. Then she sees Andrew. “ _Aaron_?”

He doesn’t glare, which is worthy enough of notice that Neil stops in his tracks, but he doesn’t look otherwise pleased to see her. “Guess again.”

Any trace of quiet, early morning softness vanishes with a hiss of breath and the sudden squealing of a chair pushed too heavily backwards as Allison stands. Behind her, Seth also pushes to his feet, but without the violence of her motions. “I want an explanation,” and there’s a different edge to Allison’s voice now; it’s not anger, but fear. She is afraid. “And I want it immediately.” The same icy glare that she normally reserves for Kevin fixes itself on Neil, suddenly the enemy.

“Can it wait for the others to get here?” Neil drops into the chair that has slowly become _his_ , Kevin taking one immediately to his right; he’s _tired_ suddenly, they both are, worn in a way they haven’t been since the long, cold days of the Winter Kingdom. There’s a bite of aloofness in Neil’s voice. It’s normal for Kevin to hold himself apart, to speak sharply to the Foxes, but not Neil – Andrew shrugs at the change in atmosphere and perches against the table at Neil’s other side. “I don’t want to repeat myself.”

Whatever reply Allison had been looking to find in clenched fists is lost at the arrival of the final three Foxes; Matt freezes at the door when he catches a glimpse of Andrew, gaze going vacant in the way it does when he’s searching a century and a half of memories to find recognition. He doesn’t look happy, but he does offer Neil a weak smile when he takes the chair at the other side of Kevin. “Makes sense,” and the defeated acceptance is better than the broken glass disapproval, “why you called me instead.”

There’s a moment of wordless conversation passed between Allison and Dan before the ifrit has even made it to the table; Neil forgets that just because their bond was formed at the Foxhole Court and not in the blood and fire of his and Kevin’s that it hasn’t also seen its share of battles. Whatever is said leaves a tang of brimstone in the air and the room a good fifteen degrees warmer, and Dan glances coolly over with a calculating gaze. The next flick of her eyes is to Seth, already standing at Allison’s side, who nods once – Neil is not a member of the Foxhole Court but he _is_ one of the Foxes, and he knows what they look like when they ready themselves for a fight. If it comes to that, he doesn’t think he’ll be able to choose a side (he thinks that maybe he already chose).

Luckily, it doesn’t come to that. “Andrew,” Renee’s voice is always unexpected, but moreso now from the way she sounds completely pleased to see him. There’s a warm smile on her face that, for a moment so fleeting Neil is sure he’s imagined it, meets the ghost of an echo on Andrew’s, and she walks over to rest a delicate hand on his arm. “You’re looking better.” He offers back a quiet snort that might be a laugh, and Renee’s hand squeezes once like a hug before she offers the same to Neil. It effectively, and impossibly, drains the tension of the room.

This time, Allison seeks out Neil’s gaze; the unspoken words are less than an apology, but he accepts then regardless. “You promised me a story,” and even though he _had_ , even though he was expecting the words, there’s still a moment of ice-cold terror washing down his spine because the only thing that’s kept him alive have been his secrets. Renee squeezes his arm like a hug, and Dan pats his head like he’s a small child. It hasn’t been the secrets keeping him alive for years.

“I was two,” he begins, tip-toeing the line between truth and lie, too scared to cross over. “When I was given to Riko Moriyama as a gift. He told me that I was originally supposed to join the Ravens, be one of his guards, but-” A waggle of his hand is enough to convey the lack of magic that would have been seen as worthlessness in the Winter Kingdom. There are certain scars that don’t need to be bared. “Instead, I was given to him as a servant.” _Him_ is a thumb jerked at Kevin, and a brittle sneer. “We got out eight years later, and haven’t heard a word from Riko since.”

“Until recently,” Andrew blandly amends; he’s examining the carvings around the border of the table like he actually cares, but at least one thumb is worrying the edge of his sleeve like nerves. “Hurry it up. No one cares about your sob story, Neil.”

Despite the curt words, there’s a grounding familiarity to them; it’s not quite the safety of the balcony, but the idea of giving up truths doesn’t seem as daunting as it did even moments before. “There’s a giant painting of Riko outside my apartment and someone’s glamored it to be invisible.” He shrugs. “And whoever cast the spell was powerful enough that it even fooled the Dara.”

Disbelief sounds a sharply drawn breath from nearly everyone present; Andrew is still feigning disinterest, and Kevin has yet to speak around the clench in his jaw that settled in with six words from Neil. “Is that-” Dan directs the question to all three of them, Neil and Kevin and Andrew, “Is that even possible?”

Before Kevin joined the Containment Division, their numbers were more than twice what they are now – twenty magic users, many with other positions within the government who came together at the turns of the wheel, worked for nearly two days before each festival to reset the Bindings. Since Kevin, the ranks have been dissolved to this core group – the Foxes – and the time cut to just over ten hours. Of the other Class Five magic users, every single one is some form of elemental or High Fae; Kevin is the only human, and the only one whose powers include multiple elements. He is as much an anomaly as Neil is, but infinitely more dangerous. The fact that the glamor exists means that it _is_ possible, but it shouldn’t be.

Finally, Kevin speaks. His voice sound rough, like his throat is raw. “The man who set the glamor is called Tetsuji. He’s-” Tetsuji is, as far as they know, a member of the Winter Kingdom’s ruling family, but was cast out sometime before the wars – Neil has always assumed for siding with Riko, but there was no one from that time left alive at Evermore to ask. He is Riko’s uncle in blood, and his father in name. He is the man who helped to raise Kevin, taking full custody after his mother’s death. He is also the man who held him down as Riko drove an iron spike laden with seventeen death curses through Kevin’s dominant hand. “He’s familiar enough with me that the spell was probably crafted to specifically be invisible to me.”

“He’s also dead,” Neil is quick to add; it’s less to comfort the Foxes than it is for Kevin’s sake. “Probably.”

Dan nods her head slowly, but her eyes are still assessment sharp like she’s piecing things together. “But if he’s dead, then what does he have to do with this? Other than the glamor, I mean?”

It’s a haphazard, piecemeal explanation that Neil still finds gaping holes in – bits of it are what he’s guessed, or what Andrew has supplied from the small pieces he remembers. Most of it is nothing beyond an assumption. “The apartment isn’t leased under my name. That, and the appointment for the original viewing, were made under the Dara. The glamor was to hide the painting, which I assume had other traps attached to it, that triggered when he crossed through the door. That’s why he was knocked out for a day.” He looks around and the Foxes are _staring_ , and Kevin nudges his knee. “What?”

“You make all of this sound so _obvious_.” Matt sounds as proud as Kevin looks; he’s never thought that Neil was stupid, not like most of the world did, but he’s never seen him like this either. Neil is not magical, the opposite of it entirely – there’s a quiet logic to the natural world when it’s not bogged down with each of its various elements.

Neil shrugs, suddenly self-conscious. “I still don’t know what they were planning, or why they didn’t do anything.”

Familiar disdain from Seth lightens the mood. “You,” and he finally takes a chair again, running a tired hand back through his hair, “Idiot.”

He’s _tired_. “What, Seth? What did I do that was so stupid this time? Please, tell me.”

It’s a surprise when Seth drops his gaze, almost biting his tongue, until Allison removes her hand from where she’s been digging her nails into his thigh; there’s a spot of red against the denim of his pants. “ _You_ ,” he repeats, but the snarl in his voice is without its usual ferocity. “You happened. They didn’t expect there to be a second person in the apartment, so they couldn’t exactly kidnap the Dara. Or whatever they had planned.”

“They were going to kill him,” Andrew helpfully offers; there’s a lightness in his voice that wasn’t there before, almost as though this is the part of the day he’s enjoying. It’s the same casual air of that night in the alley, when he was given his Name back. It’s not casual at all. “Or, _I_ was going to.” There’s a defiant set to his shoulders that falls into a ‘what can you do’ gesture, and Neil gets it; he’s had to do terrible things at Riko’s behest as well.

“Oh my god,” Allison laughs. She leans down to rest her elbows against the table, propping her chin on her hands to send Neil a dazzling grin. “You accidentally broke all their spells.”

It would hardly be the first time – Neil’s accidentally broken spells just by walking into the same room as them, like the same parts of his being that refuse to recognize magic refuse to be recognized as well. Depending on the spell, he either acts as a negation or a disruption just by existing in proximity. “That actually explains a lot more,” he admits.

She cackles. “So you broke their spells, and then they tried to kill you in Columbia so they could try again. And... what, you broke their curses?”

“Oh!” With everything else, he’d forgotten that there had been little to no explanation of the sudden addition to the meeting; it means nothing that they know Andrew, especially considering the circumstances of that job offer. There’s nothing about him to trust, and it’s a warmth in his gut that the Foxes have carried on regardless, like Neil’s word is enough for them. “Actually, sort of. I broke the bindings that they set on the hellhound.”

Andrew flashes his teeth in the most violent approximation of a smile. “And then I broke _them_.”

The earlier tension gives way to confusion; Dan looks thoughtful, Allison a tired sort of sad. “So you were the hellhound then,” Seth does not ask, but nods his head in his own answer; he gets up, wandering to his office at the back of the court, and emerges only a moment later with a folder of papers. “I started looking into it so I could find a way to come after Neil-” He shrugs, unapologetic, which Neil appreciates; they’ll never be friends, probably never like each other the slightest bit, but this is Seth offering to at least work with him. For now. “Turns out we’ve had an increase in hellhounds reported over the last eighty years. Nothing ever came of it, because all of the reports came from Class Four or Fives.” Hellhounds are a Class Four restricted creature – a Class Four or Class Five magic user would be allowed to keep one, minimal questions asked.

It doesn’t make sense. “So, what, the Ravens are going to attack us with hellhounds?” It’s Matt’s turn to look unimpressed – hellhounds are more vicious than wolves, but otherwise only about as difficult to kill. A group of magic users, particularly one that specializes in Bindings and shields like the Foxes do, would have little problem with them.

Seth gives Matt the look that he normally reserves for Neil and Kevin. “A hellhound left for a Class Five is actually a murderer on the Ravens’ payroll. You really think they’d go through this much effort for just one chance?”

His words are contemplated in a moment of total silence before the Foxes explode in a flurry of frantic movements; no, they really don’t. Seth tosses the papers onto the table, where they scatter outward in a fan for ease of reading – Matt waves a hand and a tiny gust of wind sends the files across to Allison. “Make some calls,” and there’s no argument in the way she’s already reaching for her phone. Renee gestures, which must have carried words that Neil can’t hear, because Dan is already up and moving for the library of books they keep on hand with a clear destination in mind. And Kevin –

Kevin turns to Andrew with a threat of murder in his eyes. “You keep him safe,” he orders, stabbing a finger against Neil’s chest. Some of the oldest magics in their world come from favors, and Truths, and giving another power over yourself; the question, couched in a demand, is Kevin offering all three. It is an unearned act of faith so heavy that even Neil staggers under the weight. “Anything happens to him, and I promise that worse will happen to you.”

Andrew tilts his head, considering the threat, but ultimately nods once in agreement.

In the elevator, away from the Foxhole Court, Neil catches Andrew’s attention when he presses the button to go down to the lobby, rather than the tenth floor. “I’m doing something reckless and stupid,” he offers by way of explanation.

“I’m not surprised,” Andrew counters, but moves out of his way.

With eight floors to go, Neil flips open his phone and begins entering a number; his thumb taps against the call button without pressing. “What did they do?” When Andrew only stares at him, confused, he turns his attention back to the number on the screen. “The Guards you killed.”

Andrew snarls at him, recoiling one two three steps away until his back hits the wall; a tiny web of lightning ripples across the metal. “What makes you think they did anything? Maybe they just got in my way.” It should maybe frighten him, the way Neil is trapped in a conductive box with a man he’s watched obliterate a city block. It doesn’t.

“Because,” Neil shrugs, “You admit to killing people, but you flinch when others accuse you of it.” Because, he wants to say, you promised you wouldn’t harm me when you had every reason to. Because Neil does not trust easily, or often, but he trusts Andrew. “So what did they do?”

Three floors, and Andrew caves. “Nicky,” he growls out the name, refusing to make eye contact. “A few of the Guards from that unit attacked him – they didn’t like that a human had married one of the High Fae. No one would tell me which four it was, so I killed them all.”

Guards work in units of forty. “I thought it was only thirty-nine?”

Maybe Neil’s approval is obvious, or maybe Andrew just doesn’t care. Maybe the smile he feels tugging at his lips makes its way into his voice. Whatever it is, Andrew steps closer and the crackle of electricity disappears. “Well,” and there’s the blandness of amusement, the personality that Andrew pretends doesn’t exist. “I had to leave one, to tell the world that Nicky was off limits.”

For the first time, Neil flinches. “But Nicky ended up involved anyway. You turned down the Foxes... I’m guessing the Ravens didn’t ask.” Andrew snorts; they rarely do. “And Nicky and Aaron were exiled after you disappeared.” It’s not even a practiced lack of reaction anymore – Andrew is, has been, _burning_ with anger over the treatment of his family. He’s had the very essence of his being stolen and warped and managed it with a quiet, reflective confusion, but there is rage lying barely concealed between the lines of their current conversation. “You know, the next time one of them calls you a monster, I’m going to have to fight them.”

“I hate you,” Andrew mutters, more to himself.

One floor. “Yeah, so you’ve said.”

The elevator _dings_ out the lobby destination, and the doors slide open; Nicky and Aaron are waiting on the other side, flanking a very stone-faced Wymack. “Neil,” he takes in the other occupant with a weary sigh, pinching the bridge of his nose, “If this is you deciding to trust me, I’ve changed my mind. I don’t get paid nearly enough to deal with the bullshit that follows you.”


	9. Chapter 9

* * *

IX.

* * *

“I know I’ve never given you a reason to,” Neil hadn’t said hello, hadn’t introduced himself against the likelihood that Wymack never saved his contact information – he figured, at that point, it would be obvious who would be speaking. “But I need you to trust me.”

It was barely after three in the morning, but Wymack sounded awake enough after the unorthodox greeting. “What do you need?” After Neil had dragged Kevin through the Bindings, Wymack had been waiting on the other side; even if Neil hadn’t already known his relation to Kevin, it would have been obvious in that single moment. The set of anger at his brow and jaw, and the following melt into realization, was more familiar to Neil than his own face – Kevin might have his mother’s eyes and skin a few shades closer to his mother’s coloring, but his expressions have always been entirely his father’s.

_He needs a blood transfusion or he’s going to die_ , Neil had spoken calmly, too calmly, cold inside like the arm slung across his shoulders and the man at his side (cold in a way he should never be, not with the fire that he could barely keep reined beneath his skin). _You can do it – he’s your son. You’re the same blood type._

He’d been on the other side of the wall in the hospital too, after the surgeries – neither of them had ever said thank you, for Wymack saving Kevin’s life, but they were still too many jagged edges of familial betrayal back then. Those were the days of a sterile room and Neil refusing to speak until he could speak to Kevin, and Kevin refusing to wake up. An entire week of the Council meeting behind locked and warded doors to try and decided what to do with them, whether to trust them, where to put them; ultimately Kevin had been given his apartment at the Foxhole Court, emancipated by virtue of his usefulness alone, and hadn’t needed a father after that. By the time things had been smoothed enough over it was years later and Kevin’s magic had saved the world over enough times to wipe the slate clean.

It was something they never discussed but probably should, what with the way Wymack treated Neil exactly like he treated Kevin, and treated neither of them like he treated the rest of the Foxes.

“I need Nicholas Hemmick and Aaron Minyard.”

He heard Wymack’s muttered _Christ, Neil_ as he clamored out of bed and into wakefulness; it’s an occasion where Neil might have felt guilty, knowing how little sleep they’d all been getting these past weeks, but some things were more important – Kevin, for one. The world, for another. “You need Nicky and Aaron,” he repeated like maybe, just maybe, he’d misheard (or like maybe, just maybe, he was _hoping_ he had).

Neil hadn’t bother to confirm it a second time. “At the Court.”

“Christ, Neil,” and this time it wasn’t a muttered attempt at hiding the words; in the background Neil could hear the sound of drawers opening and closing and he knew that whatever Wymack might have been saying, he was saying yes. “You need anything else while I’m at it?”

In almost ten years, Neil had never asked anything of Wymack. Not even during the hospital stay, when Wymack had leaned his head into Kevin’s room and met Neil’s gaze and whispered, leading, _The Council won’t release you to him... They say you need a guardian, but they would be open to suggestions_ and the stalemate had ended the same as the others: Resignation, from Wymack. Silence, from Neil. They’d brought his mother in the following afternoon. “Well,” and the admission cost more than he would like to admit. “Actually.”

A final muttered curse against him and Neil heard the sound of a door closing and locking. “Should be back in a few hours,” Wymack’s grunt was the opposite of the gruff it was meant to be, almost a suggestion. “It’s three in the fucking morning. You can ask me then.”

* * *

No one speaks as the elevator climbs back to the top floor of the building, and the journey feels as though it takes three times as long as it did coming down. The twins stand as far apart as they can, which isn’t far at all, and face their respective corners; Nicky catches Neil’s eye in the reflection of the door and offers a smile, which Neil quietly returns. Immediately beside him, Wymack keeps one hand clasped on Neil’s shoulder and squeezes tighter when he catches them interacting. The only break in the tension is when the elevator briefly _dings_ its arrival at the tenth floor, the doors opening only long enough for Andrew to storm through them.

“So,” Nicky begins along with the motor, whirring awake from the silence, only to have Wymack’s other hand drop down against his collarbone as well.

“Shut up,” he growls, sounding _old_. “Nicky, I haven’t had a single cup of coffee in over twenty-four hours. Just... shut up.”

Neil can’t find it in himself to feel guilty, but Nicky _hmms_ in sympathy (the lower level empaths, Neil remembers reading, are always more susceptible to the emotions of those around them). “I can run to the Starbucks on the corner,” he offers, still smiling, but shrugs away the touch at his shoulder. “Get you a latte.”

Wymack glares, and the final four floors pass in almost the blink of an eye. “You’re not going anywhere,” and the gruffness of his voice is forced, not a result of the lack of sleep. “Not alone, anyway.” His mouth turns down and the corners to match the sudden drop of Nicky’s face, returning in a hasty smile that almost doesn’t cover the moment of anger, of regret, of sadness that reminds Neil that Nicky is much older than he seems. Wymack doesn’t say sorry – apologies imply a debt owed, and just like there’s power in Names and Truths, there’s power in Favors as well – but the sentiment is there. “Doesn’t matter what I think... you’re technically still a criminal.”

Not that anyone seems to care, with the greeting Nicky gets.

Allison lets out a squeal as soon as she sees him, high and girlish in a way that she generally isn’t, and all but flings herself into his arms; Nicky catches her with a matching noise and his hands around her waist. The whispered conversation, lack of volume at odds with the exuberance of their hug, is in German – Neil politely does not listen. There’s a single moment where he looks away to catch Aaron’s gaze as he does the same, but it ends with a sneer from the shorter man.

“Nicky!” Even Dan sounds excited to see him, though she spares the physical affection – Neil isn’t sure if it’s due to lack of desire, or because Allison is still wrapped around as much of Nicky as she can reach. He imagines the latter; Dan has never been shy with contact before.

The four inches in height he has on Allison (which, if she had gone home the night before and returned in her usual armor of makeup and heels, would be closer to an inch in her favor) become apparent when he attempts to put her down. “Allie,” and the smile is evident even in his voice, “Allie, I need to breathe.” Her arms don’t loosen from their grip around his neck, but he releases his hold on her for an awkward wave. “Hey Foxes.”

Matt returns it. “Not that we’re not glad to see you,” and, aside from Seth (whose stony expression had hardened further when Neil returned, and further still when he saw who came with him) it rings out as a truth. “But what are you doing here? Aren’t you supposed to be-” The wiggle of his hand is indistinct, but infinitely more polite than any meaning it is meant to convey.

“I brought them.”

Neil is not a member of the Foxhole Court, but he is possibly – probably – one of the Foxes. It’s not a recent occurrence, but a recent realization. A moment of clarity wrought from the chaos of the previous weeks. He knows that they, excepting Seth, would trust his judgement if he came to them with an idea; that’s why, given the overall lack of reaction to his words, he’s surprised to feel a spark of defiance to them.

If Dan picks up on the sentiment, she easily ignores it. “Good,” and there’s a break in the seriousness of the moment; smiling, she ruffles Neil’s hair as she passes. “I told you before, I’ll take any help I can get at this point. What’s the plan?”

They look to him like he might have an answer, like they’d listen even if he didn’t, and Neil isn’t sure what to make of it. He’s never had people look at him like he _knows_ anything before. “Nicky,” and the first attempt of the name is a quiet, nervous croak. “Nicky, I need you to help Allison, make some calls.” Nicky signals his agreement around a smile and an armful of Allison, who quickly pulls herself back into professionalism – they take the earlier list to the opposite end of the table, seamlessly dividing it in half and beginning to contact the necessary players. And now the difficult work begins. “Seth,” and the undine doesn’t look happy to be doing so, but he nods his head in acknowledgement. “I need you to let Aaron use your computer.”

Seth glares, a challenge in his eyes, and his lips pinch like he’s biting his refusal into the skin. His computer isn’t anything special, aside from being the only one at the Court – the Foxes do a majority of their work in paper and ink, things easily kept secure with magic or fire. Seth’s computer, with layers of magical and technical security so thick that most cannot even use it, connects to the vast digital archives that the Summer Kingdom developed earlier in the century. No one, _no one_ , has access to it. Then he blinks, first one and then the second set of lids, and he releases his arguments in a single breath. “Yeah,” and he slides the laptop across the table. “Okay.”

The keyboard hums and crackles as Aaron runs his fingers across it, and something that might be a smile crosses his face; it’s crooked and fragile, but unmistakably pleased.

“Seth will fill you in on the details, but I need you to dig up everything on the hellhounds, the Ravens, and the current Class Fives.” When there’s no response aside from Aaron’s reverent check of hardware, Neil taps the table once. Twice. Aaron’s gaze shoots up to his, sharp with dislike. “Aaron. _Everything_.”

Minor pleasure spreads into a smug, overly satisfied grin. “You’re giving me full access?”

“Would I be able to stop you?”

It’s disconcerting, exactly how much he looks like his brother in that moment; the twins are identical, but Neil hasn’t had trouble telling them apart – Andrew is quieter with his face, but more expressive with his hands. In that brief flash of time, however, Neil can see more of Andrew’s intense scrutiny than he would expect from the otherwise more reactive of the pair. “If there’s anything to know,” he offers instead of an answer, but it’s the first time he hasn’t sounded like he wished Neil wouldn’t survive the encounter. “You’ll know it.”

Neil nods his head – a truce. “Matt and Seth will keep an eye on you,” he adds, because he doesn’t trust Andrew any further than he might be able to throw him, and instead of vanishing the quiet stare intensifies. “Make sure you stay on task.”

Renee appears at Neil’s side as soon as everyone else has vacated it – Matt and Seth argue their way to a back table, where Aaron ignores them as he sets up. The computer all but hums when he runs his hands across it, whirring in the productive way that electronics just _don’t_ for Andrew, and he’s halfway immersed before the other two even realize he’s moved on. Dan joins Nicky and Allison at the phones for a brief conference, and then pulls Kevin toward the back office that was originally Wymack’s but has since become hers. The door closes behind them in the unspoken rule that means whatever they’re discussing won’t be shared until they’ve finished arguing over it. “You’ve done an amazing job today,” she tells him with quiet certainty, “but I think we can handle it from here.”

“I’m not going to just-”

“Neil.” In the five – six, now – times that Renee has spoken aloud to him, she has always spoken softly and entirely in suggestion; this is the first time he feels as though he is being issued an order. “Someone should be with Andrew right now.” She squeezes his arm in apparent dismissal, and walks him to the door before he can think to respond.

* * *

When Neil returns to his apartment, he heads immediately for the balcony; Andrew is leaning against the railing in a familiar sight, a half-finished cigarette between his lips and a half-formed threat in the set of his shoulders. He doesn’t acknowledge Neil’s presence, but when Neil reaches a hand for the pack of cigarettes on the railing, he nudges them closer. It’s a few quiet moments of smoke and sunlight, and then, “I can’t be around them.”

Andrew’s hands are white-knuckled against the railing, and if the filter at his elbow is any sign, it’s his fifth that he’s already smoked down to nothing. Neil, recognizing need, takes a final moment of light and heat and memories from his own before passing it over. “I didn’t ask.”

“Shut up,” Andrew snarls, pausing the cigarette in his hands like Neil so often does, staring at the sudden light against the dark bands that wrap his arms instead of the way Neil stares at him. “You don’t need to. You’re the loudest fucking thinker, when you bother to think.” There’s a violence to his movements now, the viciousness of vulnerability, as he stabs the butt of his first – fifth – cigarette against the tiles and all but bites down on the new one; Neil isn’t afraid. He might be dangerous to threats against his family, but when the only threat is his family’s existence he’s much more likely to turn any aggression inward toward himself. “They’re nothing to me.”

Fae cannot lie; Andrew does not tell the truth. “They’re your family.”

“That word means nothing to me.”

“Yeah,” he agrees. The words burn like the cuts of a razor blade at the back of his mind, tiny wounds he’s allowed to fester for nearly a decade: _my mother sold me to the Ravens to save her own life_. “Me either.”

There’s anger at the edges of Andrew’s understanding; he looks at Neil and he _knows_ , but it’s not an agreement he wants. Neil isn’t sure what he wants, isn’t sure even Andrew knows at this point, and allows the sudden flare of temper to roll over him without a reaction. “You’re nothing to me, too,” he snarls, electricity scratching across his skin and hatred scratching down his throat.

Instead of rising to the bait, Neil tosses some of his own; he plucks the cigarette from Andrew’s mouth and tosses it over the railing. “I’m nothing to everybody.” He leans against the wall, enjoying the way that Andrew’s eyes flick from shock to anger and back again, finally confused – it’s a small victory, but all the sweeter for the effort. Almost unconsciously, a hand drifts to fidget with the hem of his shirt, pulling it down further; the word makes him feel exposed. “Why should you be special?”

Gold eyes lock onto the movement of his hand. “Show me.” The anger and violence in Andrew’s voice have been wiped clean in an instant; when he tilts his head, considering, he reminds Neil of his previous form.

“What?”

There’s an impatient noise and suddenly Andrew is less than an arm’s length away, pausing at the way Neil’s breathing hitches in a moment of panic. “Whatever you’re hiding under there. Show me.” It’s a question and a command, phrased in a way that Neil can ignore, but won’t.

“It won’t be for free,” he jokes, or doesn’t. There’s terror burning like bile in his throat, but he reaches down and pulls the shirt over his head before he can second guess the motion – for all that it’s June, he feels the prickle of goosebumps forming over his skin. Fear, not cold, because he hasn’t been exposed like this since (since it happened). The first thing he feels on him is Andrew’s gaze, taking in the smaller of the injuries: Burns, both cigarette and flame, like a patchwork quilt down the left side of his torso. Silver lines of a knife across his shoulders and chest. The single star of a bullet that entered too close to his shoulder and exited too close to his heart. Then Andrew moves and –

His fingers are rough, but the touch is gentle – it’s a question. Curious. He traces the deep, puckered lines at Neil’s neck and biceps that he must have seen countless times but can now, finally, feel how deep they go. He follows the looping drag down from Neil’s neck to nearly his armpit, dotting the line down his sternum, and picks the trail up at the cross of the T below his belly button. The word is stretched from age and time, cut into flesh that has since grown in height, and the N is only halfway visible over the waistband of his pants. _NOTHING_ , the jagged writing reads; the only name his father ever gave him.

Andrew waits, barely brushing the curve of the G with the pads of his fingers, before moving back up. His touch catches against the ridges of scars the way the truth catches in his throat, but he doesn’t back down from the challenge – it’s his turn, after all, in their game of truths on credit. “I just – I’ve only known them three, maybe four years.” Neil has known the Foxes three times as long and still barely trusts them with his life, and never with his secrets; he understands. “The last time I saw them was almost forty years ago, and – I don’t know what they want from me.”

“Maybe they don’t want anything?”

A derisive snort and Andrew calls out the lie; Neil offered empty platitudes because he cannot otherwise find his footing. “Everybody wants something.” The Truth is soft and sure, something for Neil to cling to – something that doesn’t feel like falling, like he can’t breathe.

_Everybody_. “What do you want?” Neil thinks to ask, even though he’s not sure it’s his turn; he’s not even sure they’re still playing.

Andrew’s expression is blank and his eyes are gold and brown and green. “Nothing,” he says quietly, and whatever he feels that he doesn’t show on his face is bleeding into his voice – Neil can’t identify the emotion, only that it’s there. He wants to – he _wants_. Andrew’s smile is fragile as the moment that stretches between them, taut like a wire drawn to the breaking. “I want nothing.”

* * *

It’s three days to Midsummer now and the Foxes are in full force – they’ve located a good eighty percent of the hellhounds in question, and of the twenty they haven’t (“I... I don’t remember ever having one,” the sylph sounded confused. Scared. “I don’t know where it is, when it left... Are you sure I registered one? Really?”) they’ve managed to at least warn the involved parties.

“I called Jeremy,” Nicky offers when he arrives, pausing at the doorway like he still doesn’t believe he’s allowed to be there. The Foxes have welcomed him back like he’s never left, but there’s a lingering otherness to the way he keeps himself – and Aaron – separate that has Neil wondering if it’s anything to do with them, or everything to do with Andrew. “The Trojans are caught up in Brazil with mediations between the Lupunas and the nearby cities, they don’t think they can be back in time.”

Kevin drops what he’s holding and leans down to hide a noise of surprise against Neil’s shoulder, disguising it as a motion to retrieve the book from the floor. “ _He called Jeremy_ ,” he mutters in French, and Neil laughs – he can’t remember the last time that he did. Kevin has been some unquantified manner of impressed with the Fae Captain for as long as they’ve been in the Summer Kingdom, an infatuation that has provided Neil with endless entertainment. They’d only met the Trojans – the West Coast’s parallel to the Foxes, but whose domain lay more with negotiations and diplomacy than bindings and enforcement – once, but Kevin had been taken in by the kindness and fairness with which the unit was run. It was proof that they could be different, that _he_ could be different. That being raised on acts of violence did not condemn him to violence. Despite their reputation as peacekeepers, the Trojans were probably the strongest fighting force within the Summer Kingdom. “ _Jeremy has a phone number, and Nicky knows it_.”

“ _Nicky likes me_ ,” Neil grins in return. “ _I bet he would give it to me if I asked_.”

There’s a moment of longing on Kevin’s face, like he’s actually considering it, that is quickly smoothed into Kevin’s usual haughty expression when a sound behind them reveals itself to be Matt, waiting patiently. Neil’s grin falls as well – there have been too few moments where he recognizes his friend beneath the hours of sleeplessness in the recent months. “ _Forget it_ ,” Kevin growls, standing; he does, however, cuff on hand against Neil’s skull as he passes, shoving him nearly from the chair. “ _You wouldn’t share it with me. You’re a dick_.”

It takes everything Neil has to not return the gesture, to dig a sharp elbow into the vulnerable spot of Kevin’s ribs, but right now the Foxes need to see Kevin as a leader, and not a man. “ _Learned from the best_ ,” he mock salutes, and Kevin rolls his eyes before leaving the room. Matt does not follow. “What?” Neil asks – Matt doesn’t wait like he has a question, more that he’s got an opinion.

“Nothing,” the answer is too quick to be entirely the truth; Matt must have picked up more than just Human tradition over the years. “It’s just... With everything he does, it’s so easy to forget that he’s a person.”

And sometimes, it’s hard for Neil to remember that he’s anything but – Kevin has never been any of his titles to Neil, has never been anything beyond... family, Neil would say, if that word hadn’t had all of its meaning excised from his flesh. Maybe another, the same but unrelated, because there’s power in words and Names and that they can be wielded as weapons; Kevin is many things, but above all else he is Neil’s. “He takes some getting used to,” he admits, because for all that Neil is the one most familiar with Kevin, he’s also most familiar with his faults.

They follow Kevin back to the main room, where the Foxes are taking what seem to be their first break in a week – they’ve pulled chairs together to put up their feet, or laid against the table. A series of pizza boxes is arrayed in the middle, which can only mean that Wymack or Abby have visited recently. Nicky slides a slice of Hawaiian across to Neil, and he smiles to see that all of the ham has already been picked off.

Dan allows them fifteen minutes of uninterrupted lunch before she sets her drink down with a sigh. “Well there’s no proof, but I think we’re all in agreement that it’s going to be Midsummer?”

“It’s one of the major solstices,” Allison agrees, and steals another mushroom when Seth isn’t looking – on again, it seems, though the exact timing of that change went unnoticed. “Which means the Bindings will be renewed.”

Seth retaliates with two pieces of pepperoni, and the trail of cheese that comes with them. “Well if they were planning on taking His Majesty out of commission, it’s a good time to attack. Without him, they would probably be able to break the Bindings before we renewed them.” It’s the closest he’s ever come to saying something nice about Kevin, and all it is is a comment on his usefulness; still, it’s a start. He must realize that he’s tiptoeing toward uncharted territories of niceness, because he pauses after speaking before stuffing a too-large piece of crust in his mouth.

Matt passes him a bottle of water and pats his back preemptively. “They must know by now that he’s not dead.”

“Well sure,” Aaron’s voice is almost recognizable; the sullen viciousness had bled out after the first two hours, the boredom the first two days. There’s still nothing about him that’s particularly pleasant, but he’s managed to become a good deal less prickly. “But do they know that Andrew’s not-” Words fail him, and he gestures lamely instead. “You know.”

No one has an answer to that.

“Well,” Allison continues with deranged cheerfulness – she always finds reasons to smile in hypothetical discussions of Kevin’s death, “We have a when and a how. Now all we need is the where.” The smile turns up further as she throws the now empty water bottle at Kevin, surprising him; he doesn’t catch it, but it somehow doesn’t hit him either. Shields and bindings, Neil hides a grin behind another slice of pizza, are his specialty after all. “Where?”

The glare he shoots back is sharper than his words, not an easy feat for someone whose usual tone is a razorblade. “Why are you asking me?”

There’s another shared glance between Allison and Seth that means whenever they managed to patch up their relationship, they’ve been talking about this idea ever since. Whatever their answer to it, Allison seems hesitant to bring it up. Seth, having never had any compunctions in regards to Kevin or Neil, doesn’t. “Because this is all about you.” It’s not accusatory, though it’s probably meant to be. “You and your shit with the Ravens. So think, where would you go?”

Kevin blinks. “For what?” Neil can name twenty-three places that Kevin would go if he ever left the Foxes, two of which are in the building, and fourteen of which are off the continent. He can categorize them into places to visit versus places to run. Seth probably doesn’t mean anything by it, probably doesn’t even realize there’s a list, but Neil and Kevin had planned on their escape from South Carolina before they’d even finished making the one out of Evermore.

Or maybe he does realize, because Seth lowers his gaze. “For a showdown. Somewhere important.”

Kevin looks at Neil, a lifetime of secrets thick on his tongue, and shrugs; if ever there was a time to give up the past, it’s now. Just in case he’s asking for permission, Neil nods in agreement. “There’s a place,” when he speaks, it’s not the Dara – it’s Kevin, quiet and nervous, because there’s only two people who lived the story to tell it and neither of them is the legendary mage. “Just outside of Pisgah National Forest.” He pauses again like he’s thinking to remember the name, even though Neil knows neither of them could ever forget. “Salem.”

“What’s at Salem?” Seth asks as he pulls up the location on his screen.

Memories, mostly. “Not a whole lot of anything,” Neil uses sarcasm and a smile to distract from the way that Kevin is slowly coming to pieces beside him.

“So why there?”

“That’s where we escaped.” Kevin taps a frantic rhythm against the tabletop, stuttering through Wagner and Berlioz before settling into a reckless Saint-Saëns. It’s the first time he’s attempted French composers since Jean died. “That’s where we crossed the Bindings.”

* * *

The night before the Solstice, before _whatever_ , Kevin lets himself into the tenth floor apartment and drops to the couch beside Neil. “So,” he starts, and stops, words stuffing themselves into the silence anyway. He needn’t have bothered; Neil knows what he’s come to talk about – they’ve talked about it before. _Do exactly as I say_ , he’d told Neil when they crept out of the castle, whispering almost noiselessly with the threat of eavesdroppers in every shadow. _Stay with me. Be safe_.

“So,” Neil parrots in agreement, and Kevin’s face softens.

“I mean it.” There’s no actual command in his voice, though he could easily, and Neil thinks that maybe this is what proves that it’s not that monsters are always made – they tried to carve Kevin into Riko’s image, but they didn’t use the proper materials. Kevin would never be like them.

There’s a barely-there tremor in his hand that quiets when Neil leans against him, shoulder to shoulder. “I know.”

After that, there’s not much else to say – there wasn’t much to say to begin with, not between them. It’s always been that way with them, speaking without speaking and then hearing anyway, understanding wrought from survival. Kevin breathes, in and out. In just over one hour it will be the day of Midsummer and in just over twenty-four it will be the Solstice itself, when the sun sets on the longest day in tandem with the rising of a full moon. When the Bindings are at their most vulnerable.

Neil breathes, in and out.

Somehow, between the wards in the hallway and the familiarity of trust, they fall asleep.

Minutes, hours later a quiet noise has them both awake in an instant – ten years and they’ve never managed to train that reflex away, the panic of a door opening and closing when both of them are already in the room. Another soft noise, and they relax; it’s only Andrew. He pauses in the doorway of his room, barely visible in the glow of city lights blinking in through the windows, and then tiptoes into the living room to join them. “I don’t suppose,” and his voice is low, rough from sleep and something else, anger maybe, “there’s any way to keep him from coming along tomorrow.”

Neil realizes he’s talking to Kevin only when Kevin answers. “Neil stays with me,” and it falls short of the challenge it’s meant as; maybe, in another world, Kevin would actually _want_ to face death and danger with Neil at his side, but not this one. There’s too many needs overriding the desire they have to keep the other safe – Neil could stay out of the fight, or Kevin could win. They can’t have both.

“He’ll die.” Andrew growls out the words like he wasn’t to one to threaten Neil with the very same fate only seven weeks before, on the very same couch.

Kevin moves to stand, but Neil holds him back; they don’t need to fight each other, not when they’re going to be fighting for their lives in only a few hours. “He won’t,” and there’s no rumble of the ground but there is a weight in the air, a heavy nothing of magic and promise – Kevin cannot lie because the world will not let him, will rewrite the very history of the world if it needs to. He does not make statements like these lightly.

Andrew, unconvinced, tries a new tactic: the truth. “The Ravens don’t just fight with magic,” and it’s the first time he’s admitted to any familiarity with them. There’d been one mention, one of their nights on the roof, where Neil had finally asked what happened after he turned down the Foxes, how he ended up a hellhound. With a quiet voice and a closed-off expression, Andrew had answered. _They approached me after the Foxes, told me they could use someone like me. Offered me power and money and prestige._ A slow drag of the cigarette and he’d continued around the taste of ash and smoke. _I told them no_. It hadn’t been too hard to guess that Riko didn’t accept the refusal. “Your immunity won’t save you this time.”

It’s a fact that Neil and Kevin, and Andrew now, know all too well – there’s an entire novel of just how much he can’t be protected carved across his body. “Neil stays with me,” Kevin repeats again, because it’s the closest either of them can come to a reason why. “I need him there.”

“I,” Neil adds on, uselessly. “We.”

He doesn’t, _can’t_ say the words – he doesn’t know how, because here the strings of too-many stories tangle together into a knot, a jumble of truth and lies – but somehow Andrew hears anyway. “Oh,” and he blinks once, twice as the pieces of a puzzle he’d promised to solve slot into place. When he speaks again, his voice is low and furious. “You fucking moron, you-” The lights in the buildings across from them, the line of skyscrapers beyond the windows, flicker and go dead. Neil reaches a hand out, like he has before, but a crushing grip at his wrist stops him inches away. “ _Don’t_ ,” Andrew growls, and Neil doesn’t argue.

He pulls his hand away. “It’s fine.” It isn’t, but it is – it’s been long enough now that he has to be fine with it because he doesn’t remember any other way to be.

“It’s not.” Fists clenched and back tense, he perches uncomfortably in the armchair across from the couch, angling his body to face the door; Neil can see a glint of gold in the darkness, keeping watch, but otherwise nothing. “Honestly, Neil,” and anger has given way to scorn, “how are you still alive?”

Neil might not be able to see Andrew, but he imagines that Andrew can still see him; even half-Fae have better low light vision than humans do – he grins. “Spite, mostly.”

There’s a quiet snort of not-quite laughter. “Get some sleep, idiot.”

* * *

They leave for Salem at sunrise. It’s only a two hour drive, but the Maserati (“Is that my car?” Andrew says his first words to either of his relatives in the echoing quiet of the parking garage, more observation than accusation, and doesn’t complain when Nicky spins the keys on his finger and refuses to let him drive. Instead he shoves at Neil’s shoulder until he’s squished into the middle of the backseat, pressed halfway into Kevin’s lap, and takes the remaining side for himself.) is significantly faster than Matt’s truck and they don’t want to risk the time.

Driving through town, or what stands for a town out here, is like the first time Neil ever saw the Bindings – he feels it, first, in the way that he doesn’t feel anything at all. Suddenly there’s just _nothing_ , no air even, that brings the goosebumps across his skin, and then there’s the hollow rush in his ears like he’s held a shell to them. They turn off onto a dirt road leading away from any buildings and he counts the seconds in beats of his heart, pounding too loud in the silence.

The others, magically sensitive, react differently. Kevin is used to the Bindings by now, having built most of the spells that now fill the air, but Aaron and Nicky – they alternate between awed and afraid in turns. “This is,” and Nicky stops the car in a rust colored patch of dirt, right at the base of a hill. “This is sort of a lot.”

Aaron refuses to unbuckle his seatbelt. “Remember that metal band you booked a few years ago? The one with the subwoofers that couldn’t fit through the doors?”

“The one that you hated?”

A petulant nod, and Aaron finally gets out of the car. “This feels like that sounded.” From Kevin’s sour face and Andrew’s reluctant shrug, it’s an apt description; Neil tries to imagine the field throbbing with energy, the air thick with noise, but can’t. The world is achingly quiet for him.

“Alright,” Kevin waves them up the hill; the Bindings themselves are over the rise, at the crossroads of a stream and the border of the forest. It’s been almost ten years, but Neil recognizes the spot instantly. “When the others get here, we’ll set up.” Between the ten of them they’ve got the barest bones of a plan – keep the Ravens from leaving the field. Keep the fight away from others. Matt and Renee have, in the past, combined their efforts to create an area of magical silence; with a little work and a lot of focus, they think that they might be able to keep most of the spells contained as well. The others will face off against the Ravens, an army of unknown number – there were thirty-six at last count, a decade ago.

And Kevin will face Riko.

With the faint noise of his truck growling to a stop, the rest of the Foxes crest the rise of the hill, and Kevin tugs Neil aside by an elbow. “ _I’ve been thinking_ ,” he whispers, drifting in French even though they’re too far away to be overheard otherwise; old habits, once revisited, are hard to break free from the second time around.

“ _Always a dangerous idea_.”

“ _Nathaniel,_ ” and the Name silences him immediately. For Kevin to risk using it here, this close to the Bindings, it’s important. “ _Dan and I talked about the hellhounds, what we might be expecting from them._ ”

Of the nearly fifty hellhounds that were registered to Class Four and Five magic users, forty are currently bound under iron and spells in the basement of the Foxhole Court. Two are confirmed to have died. One is standing across the field, tracking the movements of their conversation with questions in his gaze. Four are unaccounted for. “ _Okay?_ ”

“ _Dangerous criminals that have crossed Riko_.” One of the things that Neil appreciates about Kevin is that he never treats Neil like he’s stupid, like he can’t understand – he presents the facts with a quiet ease, completely emotionless, and gives Neil time to put the pieces together. “ _With skill sets that tend toward murder. There are four-_ ”

He catches Neil as he tries to run, ingrained childhood panic overriding rational thought. For a moment he is four, is five, is six years old again and looking into a face that is too much like his own, a mirror to a cruel future, as it draws a blade across his flesh; he claws at the hands on his shoulders, even though he knows they are Kevin’s. “No,” but he takes a deep breath and the smell of ozone is a comforting anachronism – he is not back there. Across the field, he meets Andrew’s concerned expression and gestures to show he is alright. “The Butcher is dead,” he tells Kevin, throwing the same comforting platitudes of countless nightmares back in his face.

Like all platitudes, they’re nothing more than pretty words with the truth scraped out. “We don’t know that.” Neil’s father disappeared a week before his seventh birthday and was never seen or heard from again; they assumed it was because he had been killed. Now they know there may have been an alternate fate.

He shoves away, pacing a tight two-step path – he grew up trained to keep to small spaces. “If he shows up, we’ll deal with it,” and it’s obvious how much this is affecting him by how little he pretends it does. “Otherwise, we don’t have time for this.”

Kevin nods, tight-lipped, and squeezes Neil’s wrist. “Stay close.”

* * *

Right around noon, Kevin looks up from what he’s doing at some unspoken signal and glances around uneasily. Seconds pass, and the others do as well. Whatever they hear, or don’t, has them glancing into the empty space of the air with something like confusion. “Told you,” Matt grins in triumph; he already looks tired, but Renee is squeezing his hand and smiling encouragingly and somehow, Neil believes everything will be okay.

His phone buzzes a text notification in his pocket – no one sends texts anymore.

When he checks the screen, there’s a single message from an unknown number that has the blood in his veins turning to ice. _Junior_ , it reads, and suddenly the field is too large, too exposed, and there’s an acid burn of bile in his throat. _Come alone, or whoever survives the Ravens won’t survive the trip home._ Attached is a photo of the Foxes, gazing at the sky questioningly, taken from the west.

There’s no moment of deliberation – he knows what the Butcher and his people are capable of, and he knows by the very fact that they’ve got his phone number that they’ve been watching for some time. If they’re comfortable enough now to make threats, they’ve planned meticulously. “Hey,” and he waves his phone, twelve years out of date, at Kevin. “Wymack’s trying to call, but I think the shield thing is messing with the signal. I’m going to-”

“I’ll go with you,” Kevin says immediately.

He glances west and sees nothing, but knows there’s someone watching. “Come on,” and the laugh sounds forced to his ears, fake, but must be halfway believable because Kevin shrugs. “I’ll be a hundred feet away. You’ve got more important things to do than helping me check my voicemail.” Seth, ignoring the way he’s supposed to be working on the Bindings, watches the exchange with suspicion, but Neil keeps his focus on Kevin. For the first time in his life, he’s thankful for Kevin’s obsessive tendencies – he nods his head curtly and returns to what he’s working on, half his attention turned to follow Neil’s too-quick walk across the field.

Andrew stops him halfway to the trees. “You’re leaving?”

“Phone call,” Neil waves the phone again, like it explains anything, like maybe the screen will flash a warning for the Foxes to run; it stays dark. “Need to get out from under the shield.” It helps that Andrew’s magic leaves him so incompatible with technology. He might be able to know when Neil is lying about his past, but not about something like this, and he blinks in frustration when the cell phone gets too close to him. “Andrew,” and he needs to leave, needs to get to the trees before his father decides his slow response is a refusal to cooperate, but there’s too much between them to leave it unfinished.

It must take longer to speak than he intended, because Andrew begins to shift in impatience. “Neil.”

The number of things he wants to say is too great, too heavy, and it sticks in his chest; he feels the words rattle around in his lungs, pounding against his ribcage, and there’s just too much – instead, he says hardly anything at all. “Keep an eye on him?” and he jerks his head toward Kevin; Andrew follows the motion, and the wariness returns to his eyes. “Thank you,” he finally manages, and he doesn’t only mean for looking after Kevin. He means for quiet nights and shared cigarettes, for truths and lies, and for the way their apartment is the only place he’s ever felt at home.

He walks away before he loses the courage to.

It wasn’t a terrible estimate – it’s only about one hundred feet to the tree line, but the shield extends four feet into the forest. He knows he’s passed through the wards by the way the air suddenly feels _different_ , normal, wrong and right all at once; he takes two steps beyond that, and a hand grabs him by the throat. “Junior,” his father greets with a snarl – he hasn’t aged well, his skin a bit grey and his hair a bit limp and clearly, being a hellhound has not agreed with him. “Good to see you.” A sharp gesture and he’s tossed Neil forward, where Lola and Jackson and Romero are waiting to catch him with rough hands and rougher motions. “You look well.”

“Yeah, well.” Neil has spent his entire life being afraid of his father. Not logically, but the way a child fears the monster under the bed – he fears the potential of danger, the anticipation, rather than the danger itself. There’s something freeing about giving over to inevitability. “You look like shit.”

Lola’s grin is like the knife she used to drag patterns across his skin with. “All grown up,” she coos against his ear, and he feels the brief touch of her tongue on his neck before he’s dragged deeper into the forest. He thinks they walk – _they_ walk. He is dragged. – for a half an hour before they reach what passes for a road out here; a path of ground down dirt and grass and just wide enough for the car that’s parked on it. “Get in,” she orders, and the door she opens isn’t to any of the seats.

He’s halfway into the trunk before someone hits him from behind, and everything goes dark.

When he wakes up he’s in a basement, or a storm shelter of some kind; they’re rare in the cities, but the older, more rural parts of the states still have them. His hands are cuffed, the metal digging into his flesh, and suspended to a hook over his head. “Well,” and the words feel like cotton in his mouth. He coughs, throat dry, and tries again. “This is a cliché.”

Insolence earns him a hand to the face and his body slammed against the cement of a wall behind him; he feels prickles of goosebumps against his skin, like there’s magic that isn’t meant to miss him, before his father shoves him again, harder. “Do you know how stupid you made me look?” and he can’t see what’s happening behind his father’s back, behind the meager light of the overhead bulb, but he can feel the way that Lola’s nails drag down his forearms before digging half-moons into the already bloody valleys of his wrists.

There’s terror, inescapable, and he finally stops fighting it. “I can imagine,” he grins, and doesn’t flinch when a final shove of nothing against his face earns a curse and his father reaching for a bottle on a nearby shelf.

“You were meant to be a gift to the Moriyamas,” The Butcher throws the bottle cap behind him and pours a generous amount of the liquid over Neil’s hair. It smells like gasoline. “But then you turned out to be,” the second splash misses his eyes, but he can feel it burn down his throat. “Completely useless. And they punished _me_ , like it was _my fault_.” Neil spits as much of the gasoline as he can into his father’s face, and refuses to give him the satisfaction of flinching away from the click of the lighter.

Then the fire catches.

The first blast of water is so cold that he almost wishes it didn’t put out the flames – it’s so cold he can feel the way his bones all but shrink away, retreating from muscle and skin. The second blast ignores him entirely. The tub in the corner overflows with reckless aggression, grabbing Jackson and Romero by the ankles before dragging them back, dragging their heads under; the torrent bends around his feet with precision. Another wave crests and takes Lola down with it, screaming and clawing at the walls, but he sees her catch the bottom stair and pull herself free. The water whirlpools in on itself and he hears the door to the outside slam shut.

Struggling to stand around the pain in his face and the weight of ice water in his clothes, Neil turns to follow his father’s staggered retreat; arms catch his, holding him back. “Neil!” and it takes too long to blink. He closes his eyes in a wave of nausea and they refuse to open, finally doing so at the urgent shout of his name. “Neil,” and Seth is too close, hands too tight, and there must be some burns on his shoulders as well because the touch shouldn’t be agony like it is. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” he tries to say, but Seth already isn’t listening; he slices his hand in a sharp gesture and the roiling water goes eerily still, damp floor and dead bodies the only sign that anything has occurred.

“The fuck you are,” and for all the disdain in his voice, he seems genuinely concerned. “They just lit you on fire, Neil, _fuck-_ ”

He takes the moment of another too-long blink to thank whatever power of the universe that allowed Seth’s family to have originated in lakes, because as he catalogues the various ways that his body is screaming in agony he thinks that the saltwater might have killed him. “Weirdly, it’s not the first time that’s happened,” he tries to crack a joke, but feels the skin to the left of his mouth crack open instead. “The Butcher-”

Seth gestures. “He’s over there – Neil maybe you should sit down-”

He doesn’t.

It’s barely six feet to where the Butcher lays, coughing up water and unable to cast a spell, but it’s the longest journey of Neil’s life; the first step sets fire to every bruise along his spine, radiating up from the soles of his feet. It’s only the nearby pipe, grabbed when the first step ends in a stumble, tucked under his arm like a crutch that keeps him halfway upright. The second jostles the burns, the tiniest motions feeling like sandpaper dragged against raw nerves, and he clenches his jaw so tightly to keep from screaming that he thinks he feels a molar crack. By the time he’s managed to pick his feet up and put them back down a total of four times, he’s sure he’s going to pass out. The Butcher glares up at him, eyes an identical shade of ice blue, and sneers; he looks very old, and very small. “Go to hell.”

With the last of his strength, he raises the pipe like a club and bashes the Butcher’s skull in.

* * *

He doesn’t remember getting up the stairs – given the state of his injuries, it’s probably a blessing. The first conscious thought he has after the Butcher’s death is of Seth pressing a cool towel against the worst of the burns, and a cell phone into his hands. “Call him,” he urges, “you have to call him.” It takes two seconds too long to realize who the _him_ is meant to be. “Neil,” and he must have blacked out again, because they’re in a car now. “You’ve been gone for nearly three hours. You need to-”

“Shit,” and he fumbles his way through the familiar number, hissing whenever the car jolts over the dirt road and he can feel it grating against his skull.

The phone never rings. He dials from memory and presses the call button and there’s nothing, no acknowledgement that the phone is working – and then there’s chaos on the line. He can hear loud voices in the background, the only one recognizable is Matt’s, and at least four different crashes. Mostly, he can hear Kevin. “Where the fuck are you,” and he’s never been happier to hear Kevin’s frantic yelling, spitting threats and insults in three different directions. He is cruelest when he feels the most helpless. “Seth, I swear to go-”

“It’s me.”

Everything stops.

_Everything_.

The car stops bumping down an unpaved back road and the radio stops cycling in and out of static. The noise at the other end of the call dies out and Seth’s voice fades to nothing. The burns on his face stop hurting and, impossibly, the prickle of misplacement against his skin eases. It takes nine heartbeats – he knows; he counts them. It’s the only part of the world that doesn’t hang frozen, suspended from time – for everything to catch up.

“ _Neil_.” In seventeen years of friendship (they are not friends. They have shared Names and blood and the other’s pain and he thinks, if anything, he would call Kevin his brother) Neil has heard Kevin make many sounds. He’s heard screams of broken bones, and the whimpers of pretending he isn’t hurt. He’s heard the quiet mumbles of nightmares and the sharper outbursts of rage. He has never, not once, heard Kevin cry. The sound that comes out – he recognizes his name, but only barely – is gutted.

“M’fine,” he tries to say, though it’s obvious that he’s not; he can’t even bring himself to feel embarrassed for the way he has to swipe a hand across his eyes to scrub away a prickle of wetness. “Is everyone ready at the Bindings?”

Kevin’s laugh is forced, fake. “You are unbelievable,” and it’s not a fond disbelief, more toeing the line of complete and utter fury.

“I’m putting you on speaker.” He doesn’t allow time for Kevin to argue before doing so, fumbling with the phone controls – a touchscreen, Seth’s model generations newer than his own – before giving up entirely and handing it back to Seth; he swipes the screen in a certain pattern, and Kevin’s rant suddenly comes through the car speakers as well.

“-told you to stay close, and-”

“Wymack didn’t call me.” The speaker crackles warningly, like Kevin is close to losing it again, so Neil presses a hand to it like he can somehow reach across the distance and prove that he’s here, he’s okay. “The Butcher, he said I had to come alone or they would kill you all.”

Kevin’s voice is quiet. “Did he-”

“The Butcher is dead.” It’s half a lifetime of familiarity, the way the words roll of his tongue, but they bring comfort in a way they never have before; this time, he knows that they’re true. Any other answer to the question he knows Kevin is trying to ask will have to wait, because Neil doesn’t know right now. He doesn’t know how injured he is, doesn’t know if he’ll be okay – all he knows is that it’s the day of the Solstice and the Butcher is dead.

There’s a motion from the corner of his vision, and he watches Seth hang a hand awkwardly in the air like he’s not sure what to do with it; Neil doesn’t think that any touch from Seth would comfort him and, from the way he’s stopped, Seth seems to agree. Slowly, awkwardly, the fingers curl into a fist – thumb down – and he waits for Neil to bump it with his own. “I’m going to want an explanation later,” he says in his usual, sullen tones.

“I want an explanation now.” The scenery is starting to look familiar – they’re coming in from the east now, rather than the south, but he recognizes the turnoff when they arrive; they’re ten minutes away now, maybe eight with the way Seth drives. Kevin’s voice has flipped from overly concerned to completely indifferent, rattling off commands, and Seth looks like he might be offended at the change but Neil knows it’s only self-preservation. “How did you know where he was?”

Neil watches the speedometer tick up another five miles per hour. “I saw him leave,” Seth admits, “And thought it was really fucking suspicious, so I followed him.” Seth is casually disdainful of humans and outright disgusted with Kevin and Neil being allowed amnesty, and that has somehow kept Neil alive. He doesn’t want to feel grateful, not to Seth, doesn’t want to give someone he’s never been able to stand that tiniest bit of power over him... but he does.

He doesn’t say thank you, but he makes a slow, agonizing fist of his own – there’s burns down the left side of his face and arm and a series of cuts on the hand that he thinks must have come getting up the stairs. It hurts to curl the fingers together, but he manages – to offer in return. Seth smiles when he bumps it. Neil pauses, takes a deep breath and –

The call drops as soon as the Bindings do.

“Seth,” and he knows the undine has felt it when the speedometer leaps another fifteen, twenty, twenty five. “Floor it.”

* * *

Eight or ten minutes away pass in only five, and the longest part of their return to the other Foxes is Neil’s labored climb over the final hill. It helps, the way Seth allows himself to be used as a crutch, but there’s only so fast that Neil can convince his feet to move when so much of his energy is already spent convincing the rest of his body to not collapse.

Riko and Kevin stand together in the middle of the clearing, Riko’s head tilting in as Kevin tilts away, but neither of them moves. From this distance Neil can see lips moving, but none of the words that are said – he can guess. The tension in Kevin’s spine is so great that he looks to be almost carved from marble, not a living thing at all. ( _Brother_ , Riko sneers whenever his path crosses Kevin’s in the halls of Evermore, and Kevin flinches from the word like it’s a knife. _You’re not my brother,_ he murmurs under his breath, out of Riko’s hearing, and then one day, _Neil. Neil is_.)

Kevin and Riko stand together in the middle of the clearing, but Neil knows that neither of them have come alone. “I have to,” he gestures, and pats Seth’s arm in acknowledgement of the help. “You should-” He doesn’t care enough to finish what Seth should do, what the Foxes should do – all he knows is that Kevin is standing alone with Riko and that Neil should _be there_.

When he gets close enough to hear Riko’s familiar clipped speech, he gives up trying to remain unnoticed; it’s not magic, the way Riko has always been so persuasive, but it might be better if it were. Kevin has always been able to deflect magic. “They don’t appreciate your real talents,” Riko is saying, voice snake-like; it slithers and hisses through the grass. “They don’t know what you are, what you’re capable of.” When he smiles it’s like a threat and a promise and an invitation all at once, and this time when he leans in Kevin doesn’t pull away. “This Kingdom keeps you on a tether, has you leashed. Come home. Be free.”

There’s a line of bruises that ring Kevin’s throat and a shiver running through his left hand that moves entirely up his arm – nerves maybe, literal and otherwise, but Neil is close enough now to wrap his fingers around Kevin’s wrist. The tremors cease.

Riko’s face is sharp, and his gaze is sharper; this close, he looks like something sculpted from ice, cold and cruel. At Neil’s approach, that sharp gaze turns inquisitive. “Your human pet?” For a moment there’s genuine confusion in his tone, but it quickly turns mocking, like whatever he thinks of Neil and his presence hardly warrants speaking of. “You kept him, after all these years?”

Kevin spares a quick, quiet moment to run his eyes down Neil’s injuries; they’re not the worst either of them has ever seen, nor the worst they’ve had. His voice is soft. “No,” but the grin he turns when he turns back to Riko is sharp. Dangerous. The weaknesses of Kevin Day have been bricked away behind the mask of the Dara, the man the Winter Kingdom grew to fear long before the Summer Council ever did. “He kept me.”

The charisma drops as easily as it came. “You’re honestly choosing _this_ -” _This_ is a sweeping hand that encompasses the barren fields and the crumbling town beyond. The city two hours to the south and the Tower that Kevin rarely leaves. The Council that signs his checks in exchange for his obedience. The Bindings. The Foxes. Neil. “Over everything I would offer you?”

Kevin made his choice years ago. “Stand down,” he warns. Pleads. “Or-”

“Or?” Now the mocking comes in laughter, sharp like the rest of him, and hollow; Riko laughs but there’s no emotion behind it, the same as his eyes, all dark surface and nothing beneath. As if summoned, the air behind him shimmers and the Ravens – forty-two now, their numbers increased – stand in units at his back. Thea is leading them, spear in hand, and she doesn’t spare a glance at Kevin. “After all these years, _brother_ ,” and it’s like the lash of a whip, the way Kevin flinches, “You should know that you can’t beat me alone.”

Though it threatens to split the already mangled skin of his knuckles, Neil squeezes his grip and presses his thumb painfully against the joint of Kevin’s wrist ( _whatever it takes_ ). “I’m not alone,” Kevin grins again, sharp and dangerous; he made his choice years ago, like Neil made his. “I’ve never been alone.”

There’s a sudden weight on the back of Neil’s neck, and he recognizes it as Andrew’s hand; if he squeezes tighter than he normally might, Neil thinks he might be forgiven under the circumstances. Dan steps beside Kevin at his other side, with Seth and Allison joining her; Nicky announces himself with a quiet noise of pain when he sees Neil, and he can only assume Aaron is nearby as well. Matt and Renee fill the empty space behind the Foxes – their first priority is the shield to contain everyone.

He must realize that he doesn’t have the power over him that he once did, because Riko completely ignores Kevin when he sees Andrew; for the first time, there’s a spark of emotion in his eyes. Shock, first, and then anger – Riko is not used to being refused. “Andrew,” he greets with false cheer, the same way he used to when he came to gloat and dig fingers into the Butcher’s handiwork. “If I had known you would be joining us, I would have brought Drake along.” Andrew _freezes_ , hand ice cold against Neil’s skin and even his presence, normally a comfort, goes so empty that Neil immediately turns to make sure he’s still alive. He is, but he looks as though he wishes he weren’t. Riko laughs. “I know how much he’s missed you.”

Andrew’s jaw clenches, and he makes a sound that might be a snarl. It might be a sob. His jaw clenches, and Aaron’s opens. “Drake is dead.” He shoves closer to Andrew, not meeting his eyes, and repeats in a stronger voice, “he’s dead.” The twins have barely spoken in half a century, and suddenly the dam has burst. “You disappeared and we looked – god, Andrew, of course I went looking for you, and I knew that you had been raised by a family... I don’t think he knew I existed. I knocked on the door and he thought I was you, and-” Andrew’s face is white and his eyes are dark, angry, “and I _knew_ and-” This time, when Aaron reaches out, Andrew leans into it.

“Don’t.” The hold at the back of Neil’s neck transfers to Aaron’s, and Andrew shakes him; the fury of his tone is at odds with the quiet, tired way he leans his forehead against his twin’s.

With surprising tenderness, Aaron keeps his hands away from his brother and allow Andrew to control the single points of contact. “He’s dead.” It doesn’t take a genius to figure out exactly _how_ Aaron knows this, but there’s not an ounce of regret in his voice; if anything, he sounds as if the only regret is that he can’t kill Drake a second time.

For a moment, Riko looks so perturbed at the way his plan has seemingly unraveled – Kevin, alive, protected by the hellhound sent to kill him. The Butcher, gone, and the others locked away. The Kingdom, intact, and fully prepared to defends against attack. And now, what was obviously his final resort, thwarted – that Neil thinks they might have won the day without ever needing to actually go to battle.

Then the Ravens charge.

Or, rather, half of them do. There’s a single, messy sprint and then a spear – pitch black, with raven feather adornments – catches one of the forerunners through the chest; he looks down in surprise at the point of the spear, and drops to the ground before he can glance behind him to see who threw it. As if by an unspoken signal, nineteen of the forty-two Ravens immediately turn on the others; they look to Thea for commands. The Foxes join the fray, and suddenly the once empty clearing at the foot of a hill is a clash of magic and weapons and yelling and blood.

Kevin looks over at Neil. “You and me,” he reminds gently, and they turn to finish Riko side by side.

There’s victory in the cruel set of his grin. “I know your Name now, _Kevin Day_.” The Name is like a bullet through glass – a loud explosion falling into a sharp and shattered silence. Neil flinches; it doesn’t sound right when Riko says it, doesn’t lilt on the vowels the way that it’s meant to. The way Kevin taught him. Kevin, to his credit, doesn’t react beyond a sudden and desperate clutch against Neil’s hand – they’d been expecting a moment like this their entire lives. “Your magic can’t hurt me.”

Kevin smiles. “You’re right.” The fire that prowls beneath his skin like a tiger, barely caged, singes the hair of his arms as it snarls for release. “It can’t.”

(Neil is six and Kevin is nine and they are not friend, aren’t even friendly with each other, but they’ve pressed ice against bruises and tentative hands against bleeding skin and it’s almost the same. _If I were stronger_ , Kevin promises in the careless way of childhood, promises in big words and bigger dreams and little respect for the ways of the world, _I would leave the castle forever_.

Neil wants to tell him that he’s being stupid, but he can’t. Neil dreams that too.

_I would take you with me_ , the promise is smaller this time. More real. He would almost believe it, except –

Except it’s impossible.

Except it’s a promise.

And promises, well, there’s power in those.

It’s a blink of an eye for Neil to summon a small flame to chase away the darkness, to chase Kevin’s eyes when he refuses to meet Neil’s gaze. _You can get us out?_ He asks, but he doesn’t allow himself to hope.

With shaking fingers pressing gauze into the canyon of wounds across Neil’s biceps, Kevin blinks once. Twice. Decides. _My Name is Kevin Day_ , he says in a quiet, terrified whisper. The world fumble and clack against his teeth like they’re trying to lock themselves away, bitten down into his cheeks alongside the screams and the cries and the other weaknesses he’s swallowed. The flame cupped in Neil’s hands like a flower splutters in shock, and Neil watches it turn blue with apprehension. _And I promise you, I will get us out of here_. The shield that Kevin maintains around the tiny closet space of Neil’s, binding it hidden and safe, flares in response. _But I need help_.

Neil is six years old and he can feel the weight of the moment like a stone in his stomach, churning hard and heavy in the otherwise emptiness. _What can I do?_

Silence falls into sorrow as Kevin’s face crumples. _I don’t know_ , he admits. The bandages he wraps around Neil’s arm are tight. Secure. They are not friends but they’ve kept each other alive for four years, have cleaned wounds and changed bandages and offered to take the other’s place – they are not friends but sometimes they feel like almost the same person, bleeding the same blood. _I’m not strong enough, my magic-_ Kevin sighs, dreams and promises giving way to the cold darkness of reality. _I need_ **_more_.**

It’s only a second of consideration, a single blink of childhood selflessness and stupidity, before Neil beams at him. _My Name is Nathaniel Wesninski_ , he whispers in return, _and you can have mine_.)

Kevin smiles. “You’re right.” The fire that burns beneath his skin, barely contained, has never fully been his; it explodes into freedom. “ **It** can’t.”

It burns Riko alive.

* * *

The Ravens stand down when Riko falls, lowering their weapons and signaling a surrender with arms raised.

The half that had turned, Thea’s half, look to her for their cues; she tosses her spear to the ground, throws a kick at Riko’s remains, and then turns a dark stare on Kevin. “I told you,” she growls, voice deeper than Neil remembers it. She wears the beads and feathers of her status on a band of leather around her arm, snug around the scars he gave her all those years ago. “That I would find you.”

Kevin smiles – a _real_ smile, one of the rare ones that even Neil barely recognizes. “I was easy to find.”

She scoffs, ignoring the lightness of his mood, and suddenly the full weight of her attention is on Neil; he wants to move away, to avoid it, but he’s too tired. The burns on his face ache all the way down to the bone, throbbing in time with his heartbeat. “You’re still around.” It’s an observation, completely expressionless, but she nods her head and meets his eyes and it’s more than he would have expected. “Good.” Turning again to the Ravens, both factions of them, she begins shouting orders in rapid Japanese – the half that remained loyal to Riko are slowly corralled into a knot, Thea’s troops holding them at bay at the edge of their blades.

“What happens to them?”

The Foxes make their way across the field to stand at Neil’s side – Allison immediately fusses over his injuries, ignoring the way Andrew glares threats of death at her whenever she contacts the blistered skin, until Seth moves to offer what healing he can. Dan, leaning against Nicky’s arm, gestures to what remains of Riko’s army. Thea follows the motion, and shrugs. “They are criminals,” she says simply, “against your Kingdom and ours. They will be put to death.”

A taller man, pale face smudged dark on one cheek as he wipes away the false tattoo, stands over the burned corpse. “Lord Ichirou sends his regards,” he says in accented English, but directs the words at Kevin alone. “He will be contacting your Council shortly to... renegotiate the terms of the Kingdom’s borders.” Another bark of a command, this time Japanese, and the Ravens retreat across the Bindings with their prisoners in tow.

There’s no prickle or pop in the air, but there’s no lack of one either. The Bindings are simply a wall, iron and stone.

“Kevin.” The word is hesitant, timid, two things Dan is not; she tries it quietly at first, like a question, but when he whirls at the sound there’s familiar steel in her gaze – she calls him by Name, or part of it, with a promise that he will be kept safe. “The Trojans will be here soon. We should-”

He blinks away exhaustion and terror and the way that he still wants to mourn Riko, after all this time, and nods. “Yeah,” his voice is as shaky as his hand is. “Yeah,” he tries again. “We need to-” His eyes move to Neil, to Riko, to Thea and back again, unable to land in any one place for long. “Thea, you should probably-”

“I will stay,” she silences him with a firm tone; Thea has never been impressed by Kevin, never treated him as anything more than a man. She allows him to be normal. “Someone needs to remind your people that there is more to the Winter Kingdom than Evermore.”

“Yeah,” Kevin says again, eyes on Neil, and then Andrew’s hand squeezes painfully hard at the back of his neck as Dan moves her grip from Nicky’s arm to Allison’s. Aaron has already slipped away. “The Trojans will be here soon,” he repeats, telling Neil in the same patient tone that he used when he taught him to cook. “And technically-” _Technically_. Their Kingdom runs on the exacting guesswork of _technically_ ; Neil hates _technically_. “Andrew is either dead, or he will be on sight. Nicky and Aaron shouldn’t even be here.”

Nicky nods like he knows and it’s not fair, none of this is, but he offers a quick hug to Allison and follows the direction he’d last seen Aaron go – towards the car. Dan watches him leave, almost sadly. “We’ll talk to the Council, get all of this sorted out, but that’s going to take time.” Time they don’t have, if the sudden glint of scarlet and gold against the horizon is any sign, and it’s not fair. Even with all the time in the world, forgiveness is not something that comes easily to the Fae. Neither is admitting they were wrong. No matter what they bring to the Council, there’s a good chance this won’t get sorted out at all.

Another tug at the back of his neck, and he turns to look at Andrew; he doesn’t see the rest of the Foxes move away to give them space so much as he feels it, a sudden weight in the air that has nothing to do with magic and everything to do with the rough grasp of a palm behind his head. “So,” he tries, but the words are drowned out in the blare of a car horn. Nicky leans out of the window of the car – driver’s side, one hand wrapped around the steering wheel like he knows it’s the last time he’ll be in this seat. Aaron braces his hands against the dashboard of the passenger’s side like he’s having the same thought.

_Everything has changed_.

Not only with them – e _verything_. Everything has changed. Neil can smell it in the air, taste the coppery tang of it on the wind – it is a familiar, long forgotten scent, a memory of a memory. There is change on the horizon. There’s no longer a skittering hum beneath his skin, no feeling of wrongness in his bones; he takes a breath and it feels like the first of his life. The world is the same and so is he, but everything is different.

The Bindings have fallen.

“Andrew!” Aaron calls for the third time, face turned away to glance behind, watching for the approaching flags to crest the rise. To their other side, Renee leans against Matt’s shoulder with her eyes screwed shut – she can’t hold the silence much longer. “We need to  _go_ -”

Andrew raises one hand without turning around, a gesture that commands them to wait; he doesn’t break his gaze away from Neil’s, even to blink, and for once it’s not the sort that hides behind casual indifference. His stare is a storm of gold and brown and green, the same unknown fathoms as that night in Eden’s, as behind the flare of a cigarette. It’s the one that Neil doesn’t know the name of, but has guessed anyway. “I’d say ‘see you around,’” and he doesn’t smile, but one corner of one lips tugs slightly outward. It’s enough. “But I probably won’t.”

Neil’s tasted enough of goodbyes to know the feeling of one on his tongue. “No.”

“Well then.” He shrugs; it’s smooth and simple this time. Entirely human. “Knowing you has been the single worst experience of my life. Goodbye, Neil.” Another easy motion; he turns his back, and he walks away.

“Nathaniel.”

Andrew falters. The toe of his boot catches on nothing, and the almost-misstep has him drawing up short, visibly shaken; his hands clench into fists, knuckles white, and there’s a spark that runs a current from one to the other. When he turns around, there’s a glare on his face and hollowness in his eyes – he looks _afraid_. “What?”

The uncertainty in his voice brings a smile to Neil’s – Neil is not magical, but there’s a magic in Names and in souls and he gives up both. Two steps bring him within arm’s reach; a hand at the back of Andrew’s neck, thumb brushing at the pulse point beneath his ear, brings him even closer. It’s an offer, not an expectation. He sets his lips against Andrew’s ear, takes a breath, and whispers. “My Name is Nathaniel Wesninski.”

And then he lets him go.


	10. Chapter 10

* * *

Six Months Later

* * *

Matt and Dan get married on the first Saturday in December.

Allison, not quite restored into her family’s good graces but well on her way back, at least, offers the occupied only in the summer Reynolds estate in Westchester County up as a venue. It’s a bit of a drive from the Foxhole Court, a bit less of a flight, but the colonial style mansion is beautiful and, despite the whispers of a blizzard on the horizon, the entire property feels like something from a fairy tale. With five months of preparation, the staff transforms the first floor ballroom into something extravagantly beyond picture perfect (Kevin and Allison, working together for perhaps the first time in their lives, manage to stave off the weather just long enough for a series of photos at the lake behind the house).

It’s the first wedding that Neil has ever been to; he loves Matt and Dan fiercely, loves the love they’ve come together to celebrate, but he doesn’t think he’s a fan. Matt spends the week leading up to the date more at Neil’s apartment than his own, running through every series of what-ifs and maybes he can imagine until Neil gives up attempting to assure him. “Yes,” he agrees finally, turning for his bedroom; it’s three in the morning. “It’s going to be awful. I promise I will try to care more in a few hours.” When he reemerges a quarter after seven, Matt is still awake and seated on the couch. He picks up where he left off the night before, and Neil groans his way through making a pot of coffee.

Still, when Matt bursts into tears as soon as Dan appears in the doorway on Wymack’s arm, a knockout in delicate white lace, Neil can feel himself tearing up a little as well.

After the ceremony itself, there’s a party that puts every single one of the Foxes’ previous events to shame. “I want a wedding like this one day,” Allison confides around her fourth glass of wine. She’d appeared at Neil’s side some five minutes before, leaning down from her towering six inch heeled height to rest her head against his shoulder and completely ignoring Kevin’s presence (their morning collaboration apparently using up any civility they could manage).

There are approaching a hundred people that Neil doesn’t know in a room that could easily fit twice as many, and ten that he knows almost as well as he knows himself – that group, so few in number, are easy to find even in the crowd. He feels warm, and safe. “I’m probably not the one you should be telling that to,” he tells her instead, because he fears that otherwise he might say something impossibly stupid and sappy.

Allison ruffles his hair and presses a bright pink lip mark into the ruined skin of his cheek before tiptoeing off to find Seth. “I’ll make an honest man out of you yet, Neil.”

“Should I bother getting my hopes up?” It hadn’t surprised Neil when he’d seen his mother arrive that morning, she had grown quite close to Wymack and Abby over the years, but it does startle him a bit when he blinks away the sequins and perfume of Allison’s departure to find that she’s easily slipped into the space left behind. He doesn’t think they’ve been this close to each other since he was sixteen, and they definitely haven’t been in the same room since he moved out – he wants to blame the Ravens or the Foxes or any of the events of the summertime, but he knows it’s a lie. The truth is a dark nights shared over cigarettes ( _My mother sold me to the Ravens to save her own life_ ).

He resolutely does not fidget. “No,” and rather than disappointment there’s a smile tugging at her lips at his response. It’s a smile that features in the memories of happier times, the precious span between finally allowing himself to be free of the Ravens and the realization that he’d traded one cage for a basement. It’s a smile he hasn’t seen in years.

She reaches out, hesitates, and gently squeezes his hand in hers. “I wasn’t being serious.” Her voice is steady, calming, and it’s always been that way – his mother speaks and it’s like a blanket of peace, quiet in his head and against his skin, and even though he’s sure that she’s only alive because he wasn’t meant to be he relaxes at the touch. They did, years ago, used to be quite close. “All I want, all I have _ever wanted_ , is for you to be happy.”

“Thanks, Mom.” He’s not sure if he means it but he says it anyway; it’s a day for declarations like this, and he’s here with his family (both the one by blood, that’s done nothing but spill his, and the one he’s built).

The grip around his fingers tightens again, and the smile falls; her voice is still smooth and soft. “I’m sorry.” All around them, people are smiling and whirling – even Thea has managed to drag Kevin onto the dance floor, though he looks entirely miserable with it. “This isn’t a conversation I ever meant to have with you, but-”

Dan looks delicate in white lace and Matt is still a bit teary like he can’t quite believe she’s here with him. “Let’s not do this here.” He wants to be angry but he can’t quite bring himself to be; it’s like fighting an uphill battle against the feeling of easy tranquility his mother gives off – for the first time in her life, he wonders if this might be her power. He’s never asked.

“I wouldn’t, if I thought I had a decent chance of ever seeing you again after this.” And that, _that_ stills him – he hadn’t realized that he’d been treating this conversation as their last until she pointed it out to him, but he recognizes it as a truth as soon as he hears it. This is, in his mind, their final exchange. “There’s something that you deserve to know.”

_My mother sold me to the Ravens to save her own life_. He’s not an idiot; he figured it out years ago. The silences may have started on her end when the world rejected him and he disappeared to the basement, but they started on his end years before. “I know, Mom.”

She sighs, takes a sip of water, and for the blink of time before she speaks again the shroud of peace that always surrounds her falls away. Neil is anxious, is angry, is a hundred negative feelings tied together with a single string – this is his _mother_. He loves her, and he hates her, and he feels both so strongly that he instead feels nothing at all. Instead of squeezing his hand she laces their fingers together, like she used to when he was young. “Your mother’s name was Mary.” He forgets how to breathe. “She never would have let them take you, not as long as she was still alive.”

It’s everything, and nothing, he’s ever known. “I don’t understand-”

His mother – the woman he’s called his mother for almost ten years now, and there’s power in words. Whoever she might have been in relation to him before, there’s the truth of half a lifetime overriding any other. – touches his cheek, his forehead, and it’s the familiar touch of every rough night of disturbed sleep after the Ravens and every childhood illness. “You were a traumatized ten-year-old with no family, and you fought tooth and nail against any offers to give you a home. They called me to come in – I’m an empath, they thought I might be easier for you to talk to. But I walked in to the hospital room and-”

He remembers. “I called you Mom.” He hadn’t known much of his mother, he’d only been a toddler when he’d been taken, but what he had was dark hair and brown eyes and the way she always made him feel safe. The first time he hadn’t felt like he’d been about to leap out of his skin was when the quiet, brown-eyed woman opened his door and smiled at him.

“I couldn’t leave you alone, not after everything you had been through.”

There’s a moment of grief for the death a woman he barely knew, a life given in exchange for his own, but mostly Neil feels relieved. It’s a relief, knowing the truth – as strange as it is. It’s a relief knowing he had been wrong. “Thanks,” he tells her again; this time, he _does_ mean it. It’s a simple word for a complex meaning, one of the few magics he’s capable of, and he doesn’t know if he means it only for the truth, or if he’s including the selfless adoption of a damaged boy and subsequent years of kindness. In that single moment, he loves this woman fiercely.

She blinks and he pretends he doesn’t see the wetness of her eyes. “Betsy.” When he doesn’t take the hand she offers, extended out in a greeting ten years too late, she waves it back and forth a bit; the bracelets on her wrist click together. “In the interest of truth.”

“Nice to meet you,” and he takes her hand in a gesture that is halfway a shake, and halfway just holding it; everything is different now, but nothing has changed. “But in the interest of truth, I really don’t care.” Neil has his father’s eyes and his father’s hair and his father’s razor-sharp grin, but he has his mother’s softness and her spine. In all the ways that matter, he is the result of this woman, whatever her name might be. “ _Mom_.”

A familiar laugh, and his mother hugs him for the first time in just about seven years. “I may not have given birth to you,” and when she pulls away it’s like she’s really _looking_ at him, for the first time in years, and seeing whoever he’s become. “But you have given me every one of these grey hairs.”

“Please,” and he presses a kiss to her cheek before darting out of range, “you’ve been dyeing your hair since you hit fifty.”

* * *

_Nathaniel_.

He doesn’t hear the Name, not really; he hears the music and the laughter of his family around him, hears the tap of the girls’ heels on the floor and the laugh that bubbles up in Matt’s chest when the lights catch the glint of a ring on his hand. He hears conversations at the tables between the people he has no interest in, and the too-many clicks of cameras taking pictures. He doesn’t _hear_ the Name, but he feels it. It’s not quite the tug in his gut, nothing that pulls him in any particular direction – it’s more a whisper of breath at the back of his neck. He can feel the Name down in his bones, but instead of the sharp pull of imperative it’s something more like an invitation.

Someone steps too far into Neil’s personal space, almost brushing against his spine, but there’s no prickle of danger at the back of his neck; instead, he finds himself leaning back onto his heels into a familiar weight. “You’re even stupider than I thought,” Andrew’s voice is pressed against the curve of his ear, an echo of their previous goodbye. There’s a shiver across his skin as his hair stands on end, but instead of calling out _danger_ it’s almost like calling out for _more_. “Tossing your Name around like that. Honestly _Nathaniel_ ,” and somehow his voice manages something closer to a purr than a growl; instead of settling in his rib cage the smooth rumble of his Name settles much lower. “It could get you into all kinds of trouble with the wrong sort of people.”

If Neil were to turn his head to reply, he thinks their lips would finally collide (instinct and reason come together as his brain sharply urges him to do it). “Yeah,” he agrees without looking; he leans back further, just enough to press the length of his body against the front of Andrew’s. “I’m sort of counting on it.”

Andrew announces his presence to the rest of the Foxes with a disgusted noise and a sharp shove at Neil’s shoulder that has him stumbling forward only a step – reflex has Kevin reaching out to steady him, but instead of looking for danger he only shrugs an acceptance when he sees the responsible party. “When this inevitably comes back to break your face,” his voice is low and furious and Neil does not feel the slightest bit threatened, “don’t expect me to step in and keep you intact.”

“Oh, so you’re sticking around then?” Neil does turn now, a challenge painted across his face in his smile, and Andrew – Andrew looks _trapped_. He follows the way that the gaze flicks, just a fraction of time, to where Aaron is seated at one of the tables beside an unfamiliar woman who looks at him like he’s hung the sun. Over the other shoulder, Neil feels his chest go light at the sight of Nicky dragging Erik away from conversation with three members of the Council, and the way that Erik all but wraps himself around Nicky right there.

He shrugs. “I told them no.” It’s a statement of fact, like it’s the easiest thing Andrew has ever done, like there was never a choice to be made.

Neil was never important enough to be allowed the luxury to want things, but oh – he _wants_. Maybe Neil goes red at the thought, or his eyes go soft, or he lets out a sound. Maybe the others have just been looking for an opportunity to step in. “Andrew,” Dan gets within arm’s reach, but doesn’t make contact. “I’m glad you could make it.”

The words jolt through Andrew like electricity; startled, his gaze – that same swirling gold and brown and green, the one that Neil can name now (because everything, _everything_ in their world has a Name, even the dangerous things) – wrenches immediately away from Neil’s. “Nicky needed a ride,” he admits, and it’s not a lie but it’s not entirely a truth either; what gives him away is that, whatever the truth might be, his first reaction is to deflect it. No one believes him.

“Well,” and her smile hasn’t wavered. Andrew is not a member of the Foxes, has turned the invitation away multiple times, but after everything they’ve been through together he is a Fox; when he doesn’t pull away, deterring only with the scowl on his face, she squeezes his arm like they’ve seen Renee do on multiple occasions. He allows it. “It’s good to see you.”

The Foxes don’t crowd him – they approach by ones and twos and stay only as long as he engages, easily moving back into louder, more raucous conversations or spinning away onto the dancefloor. Neil is intensely, infinitely grateful for them. When Nicky arrives, smiling so bright that it’s infectious, almost drunk on the multitude of happiness that radiates from every direction, he slings an arm across Neil’s shoulders and pulls his attention to the man beside him. “This is Erik,” he explains, like it’s not obvious – even if his relation to Allison wasn’t immediately noticeable, the way that their hands are clasped like they’re not letting go this time is.

“Hi.” Neil doesn’t know what else to say. He’s never liked the High Fae, never had good experiences with them, except that Allison is one of his closest friends now and – as if he knows, Erik smiles. He smiles and it’s very warm, literally and otherwise, and Nicky releases Neil to lean against his husband with delight. “Nice to meet you.”

The smile splits into a grin. “Likewise,” and he leans down to bring himself a bit closer to Neil’s height, tossing a wink in Andrew’s direction where he’s currently arguing the practical application or necromancy with Renee – Neil hopes it’s hypothetical. “Whatever he says, Nicky came with me.”

Neil doesn’t get it, and then he does. “I assume he’s leaving with you, too?”

“He’s not leaving.”

The Council is not quick to forgive, nor admit they were wrong; getting the matter of the Nicky and the twins sorted began favorably, and stalled shortly after. Within three weeks the Foxes were told, in no uncertain terms, to leave it alone entirely. Erik, despite being married to one and cousin to three others, is not a member of the Foxes – he is, however, a member of the ruling family, and although not in any direct line for the throne, he outranks even the most senior member of the Summer Council. Neil imagines that, once he got involved – and he wonders, then, when he _did_ get involved. Moreover, he wonders why nobody told him. When he looks to the Matt for answers, he gets only a fond smirk in reply – the matter was expedited.

Neil doesn’t get it, and then he does.

When Renee sees him approach, she ends the conversation with a soft smile and a gentle squeeze of Andrew’s forearm; she manages to make her sudden departure look anything but, which gives Neil the opportunity to return the favor from earlier. “Speaking of getting into trouble with the wrong sort of people-” When he leans over to hide the words against Andrew’s ear, he can feel the twitch at the back of Andrew’s neck (for the first time in his life, Neil thinks that _he_ might be the cause of the voice that urges _danger_ ) and his lips curl into a grin. “Let’s get out of here.”

* * *

The upper floors of the mansion are off-limits to party guests; instead, the multitude of extravagant bedrooms have served as Dan’s dressing area, and to house the Foxes for the four days that they’ve been in New York. At the very end of the hall is a double window that overlooks the lake – Neil slides it open with another smile, revealing a short incline down to the flat section of roof over the second story porch. “It’s not quite the balcony,” he ignores the suit he wears, slinging a leg over the window frame, “but it’s not the worst.”

Andrew follows him out, leaning to peer over the side from a spot three feet from the edge; unlike the balcony, there’s no railing here. From two floors beneath them, the quiet strings of music are barely audible. “It’s alright,” he finally admits.

Neil lights two cigarettes against the bite of snow in the air, and passes one to Andrew; time collides with their fingers, too long before either of them is able to sort of the tangle of too-close-trade-grip and when they do part, Neil is smiling. “Sure,” he tries out the feeling of words sliding between taut lips. “Alright.”

Andrew hasn’t changed much over the past six months, only tiny details – Neil searches them out until he can catalogue every single one, can reconcile them against the image in his brain until they are one and the same. He accepts the cigarette with an acerbic glare, rendered completely worthless by the way the chilly air pinkens the fair skin of his nose, highlights the freckles that dust his cheeks – Neil stares, transfixed, until a hand against the back of his skull startles him away. “Don’t look at me like that,” Andrew growls, but the rosy-tinge bleeds further across his face.

“How do you want me to look at you, then?”

Another shake at the scruff of his neck, this one sharper; he can’t feel the sting of electricity but he can feel the prickle in the air of it left behind, the nothing shiver of magic. Contrary to the initial gesture, Andrew keeps his hand at Neil’s jaw, fingers skimming a bare inch from his hair. “Nobody likes a smart mouth,” he echoes, though it’s difficult to believe the words.

Neil calls his bluff with a grin. “Except you.”

“You know,” and Andrew’s voice has gone bland and intentionally blank again, the way that it might if he were something capable of lies but instead makes do with disguising the truth. “Throwing you off this roof wouldn’t kill you, but it would probably shut you up for a few minutes.”

If Neil learned anything with the Ravens, it’s that it probably wouldn’t. “You didn’t deny it.”

There’s a snort of air in front of him, a halfway muffled huff that could be laugh, could be a cough – disguising the truth. When he does glance down, it’s to find Andrew’s gaze trained entirely on him. “I was too busy,” Andrew snarls unconvincingly in the face of Neil’s wry, knowing smile, “trying to decide between the lake side or the patio side.”

Neil cannot recall a time in his life when he was completely content, though he assumes – _hopes_ – that there must have been; he imagines that they felt a little bit like right now, like static at the back of his neck and a cold wind and the overwhelming urge to lean his forehead down to rest against Andrew’s. “I’m a good swimmer,” he says instead, unhurried. For the first time, he doesn’t feel as though this will be his only happy moment.

He gets a cloud of cigarette smoke blown into his face for that, the smoke curling around his skin with a different familiarity than he’s used to – the smell is no longer fire and burnt skin, but safety. _Home_. “Patio it is, then.”

“You wouldn’t.” Neil takes two, three steps away, to the edge of the roof and smirks at the way that Andrew’s hold tightens on the wood. “You like me too much.”

“I hate you.”

Andrew has a white-knuckled grip against the windowsill and sharp arcs of lightning crossing his skin and a bitter growl to his voice; Neil believes absolutely none of it. “You’re lying,” he turns his back to the two-story drop, challenge in his gaze.

There’s a flash of white teeth as Andrew’s lips curl back in a snarl eerily reminiscent of the hellhound’s, sharp with conviction that he could easily remove a limb. “You know that I can’t.” Neil swears that there’s smugness in the turn of his lips, in the way he explains without explaining, and he thinks that maybe he shouldn’t be surprised that it’s Andrew who has learned so well to cheat the rules of the very universe.

Neil wants – he just _wants_. “Fae can’t lie. Doesn’t mean that they always tell the truth.” There’s danger in the obscurity of half-truths, especially for people like Neil; specificity and directness are his greatest defense. He feels safe anyway.

Rolling his eyes at the obvious display of trust, Andrew takes another drag from the nearly-done cigarette; Neil watches the pull of his cheeks and the pink of his lips, unashamed. This time, when Andrew catches him staring, he doesn’t bother to look away. “The only reason I haven’t killed you yet is your unfortunate survivability.” It’s not a lie, but it’s not much of a truth either.

“Cute.” The music from below is beginning to die out, and Neil knows it’s only a matter of time before the Foxes make their way upstairs and shatter the tenuous world of their rooftop with the chaos that only family can wreak. Reluctant, he pulls away from the edge and makes his way back to the house. “I’ll remember that.”

“If it makes you feel any better,” and to anyone else, the warning tone of voice might sound like a threat; Neil is not anyone else, and Andrew could never be something he was afraid of. Especially not tucked against the wall of the house like he is, perched on the windowsill for lack of anywhere safer to sit. He straddles the frame, one foot in and one foot out, but leans his body toward Neil when he approaches. “If I haven’t killed you by now, I probably won’t in the future.”

Neil thinks he might like the sound of that – _future._ “Probably?” His teasing smile earns a glare and a puff of smoke blown into his face from Andrew. “That’s a comforting thought.”

“I am not comforting.” A second glance back and Andrew has gone still and quiet; they know each other well enough by now that the conversation has quickly veered into the unspoken, the way they don’t say what they mean but trust the other to hear anyway. And he _does_ hear.

“Yeah, well,” he braces a hand against the wall at Andrew’s shoulder, leaning in to bring their faces to an equal level; this close, he can count every speck of gold and brown and green, trace every constellation in Andrew’s eyes. This close, it wouldn’t take much to _touch_ – he freezes, asking, and with a blink, Andrew answers. “It’s not like my life could get any worse,” Neil murmurs into the fragile quiet that stretches through the window, the tenuous space between was and is, and then he closes the distance between them.


End file.
